BOOKS  BY  PRICE  COLLIER 

Published  by  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

England  and  the  English      ....    net  $1.50 
The  West  In  the  East  .   (postage  extra)  net    1.50 


THE    WEST    IN   THE   EAST 

FROM  AN  AMERICAN  POINT  OF  VIEW 


THE  WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

FROM 

AN  AMERICAN  POINT  OF  VIEW 


BY 

PRICE  COLLIER 


CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
NEW   YORK      :      :      :      :      1911 


Copyright,  1911,  by 
Charles  Scribxer's  Soxs 


Published  May,  1911 


MY  WIFE,  KATHARINE 

TO   WHOSE    SOUND   CRITICISM   AND   KINDLY   FEELING   A 

RECENT    VOLUME    OWES   THE    QUALITIES  FOR 

WHICH   IT   WAS   CHIEFLY   COMMENDED 


INTRODUCTION 

Much  ridicule  is  dealt  out  to  the  author  who 
writes  of  a  people,  and  a  country,  which  he  has 
visited  for  only  a  short  time.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  the  universal  and  sound  opinion  that 
the  history  of  an  individual,  or  of  a  nation,  can 
only  be  written  impartially  by  one  who  stands 
apart,  and  at  a  distance,  and  whose  impressions 
and  opinions  are  not  smothered  by  details  or 
prejudices. 

"My  wanderings  in  the  East  have  been  spread 
over  ten  years,  but  what  one  gains  in  insight 
during  a  long  stay  one  loses  in  the  power  of  con- 
veying. The  most  illuminating  books  on  India 
have  been  written  by  people  who  pass  through 
seeing  everything  with  a  fresh  eye,"  writes  Ed- 
mund Candler;  and  what  he  writes  of  India 
might  well  be  supported  by  the  evidence  of  such 
writings  as  those  of  Ford,  De  Amicis,  Dawson, 
Hammerton,  and  others. 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

This  is  not  by  way  of  being  a  defence  of  my 
own  audacity  in  this  and  other  volumes,  but 
an  explanation. 

I  imagine  that  a  writer  who  knew  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Skeat's  dictionary  by  heart  would  cease  to 
write,  and  die  of  verbal  suffocation.  He  would 
know  so  much  of  words,  that  he  would  deem 
them  too  dangerous  to  handle.  A  little  knowl- 
edge may  be  a  dangerous  thing,  but  too  much 
knowledge  is  often  exile  from  activity.  They 
were  right  in  the  Garden  of  Eden. 

A  year's  travel  may  mean  many  years  of  pre- 
liminary study,  steadied  and  corrected  by  ob- 
servation. I  permit  myself  to  say  as  much  for 
the  following  pages. 

I  regret  that  the  list  of  the  names  of  those 
who,  by  their  friendliness  and  hospitality,  have 
made  even  these  slight  sketches  in  the  East 
either  possible  or  profitable  is  too  long  to  give. 
I  might  be  accused,  too,  of  gilding  the  frame  of 
my  picture  over  much.  Edward  Fitzgerald  was 
much  bored  one  evening  in  the  smoking-room 
of  a  certain  house  in  the  country  by  the  familiar 
talk  about  people  of  title.  He  said  good-night 
and  left  the  room.  A  few  minutes  later  he  put 
his  head  in  at  the  door,  holding  his  candle  in  his 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

hand,  and  said  in  a  solemn  voice:  "I  knew  a 
lord  once,  but  he  is  dead  now!"  I  should  be 
sorry  to  offer  such  another  opportunity  at  my 
study  door. 

Fortunately,  those  who  gave  me  letters,  and 
those  who  honored  them,  and  many  hosts  be- 
sides, are  not  of  a  class  who  look  to  the  mention 
of  their  names  for  the  assurance  of  my  feeling 
of  gratitude  and  indebtedness.  The  book,  such 
as  it  is,  is  theirs,  and  with  it  go  my  apologies  to 
them  for  its  unworthiness. 


CONTENTS 


PACK 


I.  On  the  Way  to  the  East    .     .  1 

II.  The  Gateway  to  India    ...  46 

III.  The  Great  Mughal     ....  92 

IV.  From  Mughal  to  Briton      .     .  135 
V.  Religion  and  Caste  in  India   .  192 

VI.  His  Highness  the  Maharaja    .  240 

VII.  Bunia— Pani 288 

VIII.  A  Visitor's  Diary 321 

IX.  John  Chinaman  and  Others     .  365 

X.  Japan 409 

XI.  Things  Japanese,  Korean,  and 

Manchurian 463 

Conclusion        518 


THE  WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

I 

ON  THE   WAY  TO  THE   EAST 

IT  was  less  than  a  century  ago  that  the  sar- 
castic question,  "Who  reads  an  American 
book  ?"  was  posed  in  the  Edinburgh  Review. 
The  Review  was  young,  light-hearted,  and  care- 
less of  the  feelings  of  others  in  those  days.  When 
it  was  about  to  be  issued,  Sydney  Smith  sug- 
gested as  an  appropriate  motto  the  line  from 
Virgil:  Tenui  Musam  meditamur  a/vena,  trans- 
lating it:  "We  cultivate  literature  on  a  little 
oatmeal!" 

Nor  Sydney  Smith,  nor  any  other  Englishman 
at  that  time,  dreamed  that  well  within  the  cen- 
tury two  books  at  any  rate,  by  American  au- 
thors, dealing  directly  with  the  British  Empire, 
would  be  given  a  prominent  place  in  the  library 
of  every  serious-minded  Englishman.  Captain 
Mahan,  of  the  United  States  Navy,  and  Mr. 
Lawrence  Lowell,  president  of  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, have  written  volumes  that  no  Englishman 
cares  to  neglect. 

l 


2  THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

"What  was  playful  condescension  when  the 
question,  "Who  reads  an  American  book?"  was 
asked,  has  become  a  criticism  of  English  patriot- 
ism to-day,  for  no  Englishman  may  pass  by  these 
two  books  when  he  studies  his  own  empire. 

This  marks  a  great  change,  but  it  is  a  change 
that  is  often  misunderstood.  These  books  were 
not  written  to  instruct,  or  to  counsel,  the  Eng- 
lishman about  his  own  affairs,  but  to  serve  as 
commentaries  for  Americans,  in  the  study  of 
their  own  internal  and  external  affairs.  There 
is  no  suggestion  of  the  smallest  labial  lapse  in 
the  grandmotherly  method  with  eggs,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  a  study  of  the  old  method,  not  a 
hint  that  there  exists  a  better  of  which  we  are 
the  inventors. 

This  newly  awakened  interest  in  the  affairs  of 
Great  Britain  is  not  an  attempt  on  the  part  of 
the  American  to  patronize  the  English.  It  is  the 
direct  result  of  our  colossal  wealth,  of  our  new 
territorial  responsibilities,  and  of  our  enforced  in- 
terest in  the  policies,  affairs,  failures,  and  suc- 
cesses of  the  great  empire.  We  can  no  longer 
avoid  this  concern  in  the  empire's  affairs  if  we 
would.  It  is  not  an  impertinent  nor  an  idle  curi- 
osity and  criticism,  it  is  a  new  burden. 

It  is  no  longer  a  question  of  whether  or  no  it 
is  an  impertinence  for  an  American  to  deal  with 


ON  THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST       3 

the  British  Empire;  let  me  be  frank,  since  I  have 
been  guilty,  and  explain  that  I,  at  least,  consider 
it  a  necessity.  It  is  our  business,  nowadays,  to 
know  as  much  of  the  internal  and  external  con- 
ditions of  the  British  Empire  as  possible,  and  to 
study  these  conditions  from  an  American  point 
of  view  for  our  own  benefit,  even  if  for  no  other 
reason.  Next  to  our  own  affairs,  the  affairs  of 
Great  Britain  are  of  most  importance  to  us. 

Should  Great  Britain  lose  India,  lose  the  Suez 
Canal,  lose  the  supremacy  of  the  sea,  become  an- 
other Venice,  Spain,  Holland,  or  Denmark,  the 
one  hundred  million  inhabitants  of  the  United 
States  would  find  themselves  with  new  and  far 
heavier  burdens.  We  are  no  longer  troubling 
ourselves  as  to  whether  an  American  book  will 
be  read,  since  it  has  become  a  patriotic  duty  for 
the  American  who  is  blessed  with  the  opportu- 
nity, to  study  the  social,  moral,  and  economical 
conditions  of  the  very  people  who,  less  than  a 
century  ago,  good-naturedly  laughed  out  the 
question:  "Who  reads  an  American  book?" 
Times  have  changed;   we  have  changed. 

An  intelligent  public  opinion  about  foreign 
affairs  needs  fostering  in  America,  for  the  time 
is  not  far  distant  when  America  will  need  the 
backing  of  knowledge,  experience,  and  of  the 
travelled  information  of  her  wisest  men,  to  meet 


4  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

the  problems  that  are  even  now  preparing  for 
her. 

As  an  example,  I  might  add,  if  I  were  not  the 
friend  and  admirer  of  both  Mr.  President  Taft 
and  Mr.  Knox,  that  uninformed  diplomacy  has 
"dished"  us  in  the  East.  The  suggestion  com- 
ing  from  Washington,  that  the  six  great  powers 
should  control  together  the  railway  situation  in 
northern  and  southern  Manchuria,  was  received 
coldly  in  St.  Petersburg  and  in  Tokio,  and  with 
amused  condescension  in  London,  Paris,  and 
Berlin.  I  was  in  the  East  at  the  time,  and  at 
more  than  one  ambassadorial  table  it  was  not 
easy  to  explain  our  motives.  It  is  the  sane  and 
the  fair  solution  of  a  ticklish  problem  if  we  are 
to  have  an  open  door  in  China,  but  as  diplomacy, 
as  a  means  to  an  end,  it  was  a  lamentable  failure. 
It  drove  Russia  and  Japan  together,  and  on  the 
fourth  of  July,  1910,  an  agreement  was  signed 
between  them,  which  provides  for  "friendly  co- 
operation with  a  view  to  the  improvement  of  their 
respective  railway  lines  in  Manchuria  and  the 
perfecting  of  the  connecting  services  of  the  said 
lines,  and  to  abstain  from  all  competition  preju- 
dicial to  the  realization  of  this  object." 

In  undiplomatic  language  this  means  hands 
off  in  Manchuria,  a  sign  to  other  powers  to  keep 
off  the  grass. 


ON   THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST       5 

The  Japanese  are  building  at  great  cost  a  rail- 
way bridge  across  the  Yalu  River,  and  a  broad- 
gauge  railway  from  thence  to  Mukden.  The 
Russians  control  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway, 
with  a  branch  line  from  Harbin  to  Mukden, 
which  has  thus  far  been  operated  at  a  loss. 

This  great  valley,  stretching  up  from  the  Gulf 
of  Pechili  and  the  Gulf  of  Liao-tung  for  hundreds 
of  miles,  only  needs  improved  agricultural  ma- 
chinery and  cheap  labor,  which  is  at  hand,  to 
develop  into  a  grain-growing  territory  equal  to 
the  feeding  of  all  Japan. 

If  Mr.  Knox  had  been  with  me  on  my  tortuous 
and  tiresome  journey  through  this  fair  land,  he 
would  not  have  dreamed  of  suggesting  that  Japan 
and  Russia  should  share  these  Chinese  spoils 
with  other  countries,  or  admit  a  participating 
influence  in  a  land  watered  by  their  blood,  and 
into  which  they  were  pouring  money. 

A  suggestion  to  us  from  France  and  Russia  on 
the  fourth  of  July,  1776,  that  they  should  share 
in  our  hardly  won  opportunity,  would  have  been 
considered  by  us  as  fantastical  as  was  the  pro- 
posal of  Mr.  Knox  by  Russia  and  Japan. 

We  have  bv  this  agreement  between  Russia 
and  Japan  not  only  closed  the  door  on  ourselves, 
but  we  have  put  England  in  a  difficult  position. 
We  have  done  even  more  than  that.     We  have 


(>        tup:  west  in  the  east 

made  it  still  easier  for  Japan  to  gobble  Korea,1 
though  she  is  pledged  not  to  do  so,  and  to  turn 
her  attention  to  the  consolidation  of  her  recent 
conquests  and  to  the  Pacific.  Japan  need  no 
longer  be  uneasy  in  the  East,  and  both  Russia 
and  Japan  may  now  turn  their  eyes  to  matters 
of  more  serious  import  to  them.  Russia  becomes 
free  again  to  study  the  situation  in  India  and  the 
Persian  Gulf;  and  Japan  may  become  less  suave 
in  contemplating  the  exclusion  of  her  citizens 
from  Australia,  the  Philippines,  San  Francisco, 
and  Vancouver. 

As  a  diplomatic  move  this  affair  was  as  ill-con- 
sidered and  as  embarrassing  in  its  consequences 
as  can  well  be  imagined.  If  Mr.  Knox  had  been 
in  the  employ  of  the  Japanese  government  he 
could  not  have  aided  them  more  successfully. 

Our  government  was  probably  not  kept  in 
touch  with  the  situation  in  the  East.  Our  de- 
plorable system  of  choosing  men  to  act  as  our 
diplomatic  and  sensitive  antennae  abroad,  be- 
cause they  have  been  successful  in  the  manip- 
ulation of  ward,  city,  or  state  voters  at  home, 
will  ere  long,  and  fortunately,  bankrupt  itself. 
Whether  the  reward-seeking  politician  likes  it  or 

'This  was  written  before  the  recent  annexation  of  Korea  by  the 
Japanese.  When  I  was  in  Tokio  and  in  Seoul,  I  was  told  solemnly, 
by  officials  of  high  standing,  that  there  was  no  intention  of  annex- 
ing Korea. 


ON   THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST       7 

not,  we  must  soon  begin  to  appoint  men  who  are 
travellers,  linguists,  and  more  or  less  socially  ac- 
complished, if  we  are  to  hold  our  own,  or  even  to 
know  what  is  going  on  in  Europe  and  in  the  East. 

Such  commercial,  industrial,  and  financial  dis- 
turbances as  are  now  our  lot  in  America,  are  due 
to  some  extent  to  the  fact  that  our  productive 
powers  along  many  lines  are  now  greater  than 
the  demands  of  home  consumption.  Our  agents 
abroad,  whether  ambassadors,  ministers,  or  con- 
suls, have  the  new  burden  of  blazing  the  way  for 
an  increase  of  our  foreign  trade.  The  best  men 
that  we  can  get  for  such  posts  will  find  compet- 
itors from  Germany,  Belgium,  England,  France, 
and  Japan,  well  worthy  of  their  steel. 

I  have  not  only  spent  a  year  in  the  Far  East, 
but  I  have  also  been  for  a  short  visit  to  South 
America.  I  cannot  say  too  much  to  my  fellow- 
countrymen  of  the  successful  labors  of  the  new 
type  of  men  who  are  gradually,  but  all  too  slowly, 
being  tempted  into  our  diplomatic  and  civil  ser- 
vice. I  have  seen  many  of  them  now  all  over 
the  world,  men  who  are  making  this  work  their 
profession,  men  who  speak  and  write  the  lan- 
guage of  the  country  they  are  sent  to,  and  men 
who  can  speak  and  write  their  own,  men  who 
represent  the  United  States  worthily.  I  have 
also    seen   the   less   worth v   and    seen    at    close 


8  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

quarters  the  harm  they  do.  I  regret  that  I  must 
forbear  to  mention  names,  but  if  the  people  of 
the  United  States  knew  what  I  know  of  the  mere 
dollar  and  cents  gained  for  them,  to  mention 
nothing  else,  by  the  belter-class  men  of  our  new 
civil  service,  and  by  the  men  representing  us 
these  days  in  the  great  capitals,  they  would  wreck 
the  reputation  of  any  man,  or  any  party,  which 
attempted  to  revert  to  the  spoils  system  in  the 
appointment  of  our  civil  servants  abroad.  It 
should  be  considered  a  misdemeanor  to  appoint 
men  to  these  posts  in  payment  of  services  ren- 
dered to  persons  or  parties  at  home.  I  take  it 
that  the  accomplished  and  scholarly  Mr.  Knox 
knows  this  already,  and  he  could  spare  his  fellow- 
countrymen  unnecessary  humiliation  if  he  would 
always  act  upon  it. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  the  West 
Indies  were  responsible  for  one-fourth  of  all 
British  commerce.  The  sugar  of  the  West  Ind- 
ian Islands,  and  the  colonies  of  Spain,  were  in 
those  days  what  the  valleys  of  Manchuria  and 
the  Eastern  question  are  to-day.  Great  Britain 
was  our  rival  at  our  own  doors.  To-day  she  has 
practically  withdrawn  her  fleet  from  the  Carib- 
bean Sea. 

It  is  acknowledged  by  everybody  except  per- 
haps Germany,  that  the  Monroe  doctrine  is  not 


ON  THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST       9 

a  theory,  but  a  fact,  with  a  fleet  behind  it.  We 
have  undertaken  to  do  justice,  to  keep  the  peace, 
and  to  safeguard  property  in  South  America, 
largely  through  the  good  will  of  the  various 
states  there.  We  do  this,  for  their  benefit  and 
for  our  own,  lest  any  nation  should  make  it  an 
excuse  for  the  use  of  force  in  that  region,  that 
order  is  not  preserved  there,  and  that  therefore 
their  citizens  and  their  property  need  protec- 
tion. This  method  of  opening  the  door  to  a  for- 
eign military  power  has  been  so  successful  along 
these  same  lines  elsewhere,  that  we  cannot  afford 
to  give  the  smallest  excuse  for  such  an  argument. 
That  is  the  pith  of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  and 
what  foreign  nation  has  not  adopted  it,  and 
fought  for  it  in  some  part  of  the  world  ?  The 
actual  words  of  President  Monroe  were:  "As  a 
principle  in  which  the  rights  and  interest  of  the 
United  States  are  involved  .  .  .  the  American 
continents  .  .  .  are  henceforth  not  to  be  con- 
sidered as  subject  for  future  colonization  by  any 
European  power.  .  .  .  We  owe  it,  therefore,  to 
candor  and  to  the  amicable  relations  existing  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  those  powers  to  de- 
clare that  we  should  consider  any  attempt  on 
their  part  to  extend  their  system  to  any  portion 
of  this  hemisphere  as  dangerous  to  our  peace 
and  safety." 


10         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

Americans  must  accept  the  responsibilities  of 
the  new  situation  whether  they  like  them  or  not. 
They  may  not  shirk  the  trust  imposed  upon 
them,  whether  for  the  present  or  for  posterity. 
By  our  control  in  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  by  the 
building  of  the  canal,  by  the  assertion  that  the 
whole  of  the  South  American  continent  is  more 
or  less  within  our  sphere  of  influence,  and  by  the 
taking  over  of  the  Philippines,  we  have  made 
ourselves,  to  some  extent,  responsible  for  what 
goes  on  in  the  East.  The  Washington  dictum 
of  "no  entangling  alliances"  is  a  thing  of  the 
past.  We  cannot  play  the  game  single-handed. 
We  must  have  a  partner  or  partners,  and  we 
must  look  on  at  the  game  of  Eastern  politics 
and  policies,  not  only  with  interest,  but  with  a 
keen  desire  to  know  which  partner  to  choose 
when  the  time  of  choosing  comes.  Above,  all  we 
should  have  diplomatic  agents  in  the  East  com- 
petent to  advise  us  in  such  matters. 

One  of  the  best-informed  students  of  Asian 
questions,  Sir  William  Hunter,  wrote,  just  be- 
fore his  death:  'T  hail  the  advent  of  the  United 
States  in  the  East  as  a  new  power  for  good,  not 
alone  for  the  island  races  that  come  under  their 
care,  but  also  in  that  great  settlement  of  European 
spheres  of  influence  in  Asia,  which,  if  we  could 
see  aright,  forms  the  world  problem  of  our  day." 


ON   THE    WAY   TO   THE   EAST      11 

The  inherited  prejudices  and  quarrels  of  for- 
eign-born, or  of  parent-foreign-born  Americans, 
must  be  swept  up  in  the  dust-pan  of  provin- 
cial national  housewifery  and  thrown  away,  that 
America  as  a  whole  may  profit.  No  man  is 
truly  naturalized  as  an  American  who  persists  in 
grafting  his  particular  Old  World  enmities  or 
prejudices  upon  his  new  citizenship.  Now  that 
we  are  taking  part  in  the  world  game,  no  faction 
in  the  body  politic  ought  to  be  permitted  to  im- 
pede our  progress,  to  hamper  our  strength,  or  to 
confuse  our  judgment. 

Let  Irishmen  send  funds  to  back  a  political 
party  in  Great  Britain;  let  Germans  make  pres- 
ents to  the  German  emperor;  let  Italians  send 
thousands  in  savings  back  to  Italy;  let  Poles  hate 
both  Czar  and  Kaiser;  but  let  none  of  these  en- 
mities have  the  slightest  bearing  upon  our  foreign 
relations  or  our  foreign  alliances.  In  them  the 
Irish  must  cease  to  be  Irish,  the  Germans  to  be 
Germans,  the  Italians  to  be  Italians,  and  the 
Poles  to  be  Poles,  and  all  must  recognize  their 
fundamental  citizenship,  which  is  American. 
America,  with  imperial  tasks  on  her  hands,  can 
recognize  no  tribes  within  her  own  borders, 
among  her  own  citizens. 

It  requires  no  long  disquisition,  and  no  argu- 
ments   more    convincing    than    the    mere    state- 


12         THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

ment  of  the  facts,  to  show  America's  changed 
position  as  regards  the  European  and  the  East- 
ern powers.  Manila  is  forty-eight  hours'  jour- 
ney from  Hongkong,  Japan's  island  of  Formosa 
is  fifteen  hours  steaming  from  our  island  of 
Luzon,  and  we  have  large  sums  invested  in 
Eastern  trade,  in  Japanese  bonds,  and  we  are 
preparing  to  assist  in  the  building  and  in  the  con- 
trol of  a  railway  which  will  parallel  a  portion  of 
Russia's  Trans-Siberian  and  Japan's  Southern 
Manchurian  railways.  Seventy-five  miles  from 
Tokio,  and  at  the  extreme  western  point  of 
Japan,  is  a  wireless  telegraphy  station  at  Choshi. 
The  steamer  Korea  when  five  hundred  miles  off 
Hawaii  communicated  with  Choshi,  and  now  in 
Japan  they  are  planning  to  connect  Choshi  with 
Hawaii  by  wireless,  by  increasing  the  motor 
power  at  Choshi,  which  is  now  only  fifty  watts. 
This  makes  Japan  indeed  very  much  our  neigh- 
bor. It  may  be  added  that  Hawaii  has,  even 
now,  three  Japanese  to  one  American,  and  Peru 
has  a  numerous  colony  of  Japanese.  Our  great 
wealth,  our  energy,  and  our  policy  of  an  open 
door  in  China,  force  us  to  a  participation  in  im- 
perial affairs,  though  there  are  those  in  America 
who,  through  geographical  ignorance,  or  on  ac- 
count of  parochial  notions  as  to  international 
amenities,  imagine  that  these  enterprises  can  be 


ON  THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST     13 

undertaken  without  ample  provisions  for  a  force 
on  sea  and  land  to  back  up  these  pretensions. 

The  people  of  Oriental  descent,  and  of 
Oriental  customs  of  life,  number  between 
800,000,000  and  900,000,000,  or  more  than 
half  the  total  population  of  the  world.  India 
and  China  alone  furnish,  India  300,000,000, 
and  China  400,000,000,  of  this  total  popula- 
tion. Their  imports  are  estimated  at  some 
$2,000,000,000  a  year.  The  chief  importers 
are: 

India $450,000,000 

China 300,000,000 

Japan 250,000,000 

Hongkong 200,000,000 

Straits  Settlements 200,000,000 

East  Indian  Islands 150,000,000 

About  one-third  of  this  trade  is  between  them- 
selves, while  roughly  $1,400,000,000  comes  chiefly 
from  Europe  and  the  United  States.  Sad  to  re- 
late, the  American  share  is  only  about  six  per 
cent,  practically  all  the  remaining  ninety-four 
per  cent  being  supplied  by  Europe. 

The  chief  imports  of  the  Orient  are  cotton 
goods  to  the  value  of  $400,000,000,  manufact- 
ures of  iron  and  steel,  meat  and  dairy  products, 
medicine,  drugs,  and  dyes,  tobacco,  leather,  ag- 
ricultural  implements,   vehicles   for  transporta- 


14  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

tion,  and  articles  of  household  and  domestic- 
use.  The  most  important  item  is  cotton  goods, 
of  which  Europe  supplies  ninety-seven  per  cent, 
though  it  buys  its  raw  material  from  the  chief 
cotton-producer  of  the  world,  the  United  States. 

It  is  not  our  intention  to  neglect  this  commer- 
cial opportunity.  We  have  reminded  both  Eu- 
rope and  the  East  officially,  on  several  occasions 
of  late,  that  we  must  be  considered  as  having  a 
stake  in  the  East,  and  that  our  claims  and  opin- 
ions must  be  respected.  In  certain  quarters  at 
home  our  assertion  of  claims  and  our  assump- 
tion of  responsibilities  in  the  East  are  looked 
upon  with  dislike  and  with  distrust.  After  many 
months  of  travel  and  study  in  Europe  and  in  the 
East,  an  American  looks  upon  this  expansion  of 
interest  and  responsibility,  not  only  with  com- 
placency, but  with  the  feeling  that  it  is  unavoid- 
able. Even  if  we  were  not  in  control  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  our  posi- 
tion as  guardians  of  the  Panama  Canal,  and 
as  sponsors  for  the  safety  from  aggression  of  the 
South  American  republics,  and  our  position  on 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  force  us  to  play  a  part  in  the 
East. 

A  nation,  like  an  individual,  must  stow  or  die. 
It  is  true  that  our  first  concern  is  with  matters 
at  home.     How  a   man   will   run.  how   he  will 


ON   THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST      15 

think,  even,  depends  not  a  little  upon  the  con- 
dition of  his  heart.  Our  progress  and  prowess 
in  the  East  depend,  as  is  the  case  with  England, 
upon  our  moral  fibre  at  home. 

There  are  two  respectable  and  useful  influ- 
ences, of  far-reaching  importance  in  these  days, 
both  in  England  and  America,  falling  under  the 
general  head  of  Social  Reform,  which  are  not 
without  portents  and  promises  of  evil  in  this 
matter.  One  is  a  senseless  and  undiscriminat- 
ing  charity,  whether  backed  by  individuals  or 
officially  by  the  state;  and  the  other  is  a  weak- 
ening of  the  willingness  to  accept  responsibility, 
to  take  charge,  to  govern,  to  work  out  along 
big  lines  the  national  destiny,  the  latter  being  in 
some  sort  a  consequence  of  the  former.  The 
Little  Englanders,  and  those  who  oppose  the 
building  of  the  canal,  and  a  ship  subsidy  and  a 
powerful  navy,  are  types  of  those  who  hang 
back  in  England  and  in  America.  It  is  a  symp- 
tom of  the  weakening  of  the  very  finest  char- 
acteristics of  the  race. 

The  reader  of  the  most  elementary  sketch  of  uni- 
versal history  can  tell  of  the  cessation  of  growth, 
and  then  of  the  decay,  of  Bagdad,  of  Venice,  of 
Bruges,  of  Spain,  Portugal,  and  Holland.  France 
is  at  the  cross-roads  now.  Let  the  duties  and  re- 
sponsibilities, and  the  wealth  and  its  problems, 


16         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

come,  problems  by  no  means  easy  of  solution, 
and  the  individual  and  the  nation  which  stands 
up  to  them  lives,  or,  shirking  them  for  ease  and 
safety,  dies!  In  spite  of  all  that  is  preached  by 
the  uninformed  provinciality  of  the  day,  even  by 
respectable  men  such  as  Carnegie,  a  fierce  fighter 
for  his  own  hand  in  other  days,  nothing  is  more 
disastrous  to  civilization  than  purposeless  Peace. 
War  against  environment  is  the  essential  con- 
dition of  all  life,  whether  animal,  vegetable,  indi- 
vidual, or  national.  The  cow  and  the  lap-dog 
are  fruits  of  peace,  useful  and  ornamental  if  you 
like,  but  not  sufficient,  not  ideal.  The  cow  is 
sacred  in  India,  the  lap-dog  an  idol  in  certain 
houses,  but  they  are  not  a  protection  worth  con- 
sidering. 

"La  guerre,"  wrote  von  Moltke,  "est  une  in- 
stitution de  Dieu.  En  elle  les  plus  nobles  vertus 
trouvent  leur  epanouissement.  Sans  la  guerre  le 
monde  se  perdrait  dans  le  materialisme."  Joseph 
de  Maistre  writes:  "Lorsque  Fame  humaine  a 
perdu  son  ressort  par  la  mollesse,  l'incredulite, 
et  les  vices  gangreneux  qui  sont  l'exces  de  la 
civilisation,  elle  ne  peut  etre  retrempee  que  dans 
le  sang."  I  am  not  sure  that  both  history  and 
experience  do  not  prove  him  to  be  right.  I  re- 
peat, I  am  not  sure,  but  I  am  by  no  means  an 
advocate  of  war  for  war's  sake,  and  I  am  con- 


ON  THE   WAY  TO   THE   EAST     17 

vinced  that  defencelessness  in  face  of  the  armed 
forces  all  about  us  is  practically  an  invitation  to 
war. 

He  travels  with  eyes  and  ears  sealed,  who  does 
not  become  convinced  that  this  century  is  not 
concerned,  as  were  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
with  religious  struggles,  as  was  the  eighteenth 
with  the  rights  of  man,  as  was  the  nineteenth 
with  questions  of  nationality.  The  twentieth 
century  even  now  is  characterized  by  a  strug- 
gle for  existence  in  the  field  of  commerce  and 
industry.  Peripatetic  philosophers  in  caps  and 
blouses,  or  in  white  chokers,  or  deputations 
of  journalists,  merchants,  and  members  of  Par- 
liament, go  and  come,  in  the  hope  of  deciding 
whether  there  is  a  German  peril,  or  a  Japanese 
peril.  What  could  be  more  hopeless  ?  The  rea- 
son they  are  at  sea  is  the  simple  one,  that  the 
German  peril  and  the  Japanese  peril  are  just  as 
much  a  fact  as  the  law  of  gravitation. 

The  man  who  jumps  out  of  a  window  falls  to 
the  ground.  No  man  who  lives  in  the  three  di- 
mensions of  space,  with  which  we  are  familiar, 
can  escape  that  law.  No  man  who  lives  in  Eng- 
land and  America  can  escape  the  vital  necessity  of 
Germany  and  Japan  to  expand  or  to  go  to  the  wall. 

The  trouble  has  been  and  is,  that  we  are 
looking  at  the  question  as  one  of  malice,  of  di- 


18         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

plomacy,  of  choice.  It  is  nothing  of  the  kind. 
There  is  no  blame,  no  right  or  wrong  in  the 
matter.  It  is  life  or  death,  For  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  two  nations  already  enor- 
mously rich,  it  is  simply  a  question  of  more 
wealth.  For  Germany,  for  all  Europe  indeed, 
and  for  Japan,  it  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death. 

The  phrase  "Yellow  peril,"  "German  peril," 
"Japanese  peril,"  is  unfortunate,  for  the  word 
"peril"  implies  something  terrible  and  immi- 
nent. The  situation  exists,  but,  as  I  hope  to 
show  later  on  in  these  pages,  neither  the  "Yel- 
low peril"  nor  the  "Japanese  peril"  is  imminent 
nor  of  war-threatening  danger  to  us  in  America, 
unless  we  provoke  it  by  exaggerated  sentimen- 
tality. I  use  the  phrase  because  it  is  a  familiar 
one,  but  I  disassociate  myself  from  any  advocacy 
of  nervous  and  self-conscious  talk  or  action. 

To  talk  of  friendly  Japan,  or  of  friendly  Ger- 
many, however,  is  childish.  No  commercial  rival 
armed  to  the  teeth  is  friendly. 

Who  knew  in  1860  that  Germany  was  soon  to 
be  the  dominant  power  in  Europe  ?  Who  knew 
that  she  would  defeat  Austria  in  1866?  Who 
dreamed  in  1868  that  in  two  years  she  would 
crown  her  emperor  at  Versailles  ?  Who  dreamed 
in  1888  that  she  was  to  be  Great  Britain's  rival 
on    the    sea  ?     Certainly    no    Englishman    cried 


ON  THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST     19 

"Wolf"  at  the  appropriate  time.  What  Eng- 
lishman to-day  explains  why  Germany  smashed 
Denmark,  humiliated  Austria,  ruined  France, 
defies  England  on  the  sea,  squeezes  Holland 
commercially,  and  backs  Austria  in  tearing  up 
a  treaty  in  order  to  make  a  grab  in  the  Bal- 
kans ?  What  childish  nonsense  to  call  this  cry- 
ing "W7olf"!  It  is  an  insult  to  that  great  power 
not  to  admit  that  it  is  a  very  fine,  full-grown 
wolf,  and  just  now  very  much  on  the  prowl. 
That  is  the  fundamental  factor  to  be  remem- 
bered in  any  discussion  of  this  much-discussed 
question.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
nations  whose  lives  are  at  stake  consider  the 
matter  more  seriously  than  nations  which  have 
only  pounds  or  dollars  at  stake. 

Germany  has  a  territory  smaller  than  the  State 
of  Texas,  and  a  population  of  over  60,000,000, 
and  Germany  can  no  longer  feed  herself.  She 
can  feed  herself  for  about  two  hundred  and  fifty 
days  of  the  year.  What  about  the  other  one 
hundred  and  fifteen  days  ?  That  is  the  German 
peril,  and  that,  on  a  smaller  scale,  is  the  Japanese 
peril,  and  to  discuss  the  question  as  to  whether 
it  exists  or  not,  is  mere  beating  the  air.  It  is 
not  in  the  least  an  ethical  problem,  it  is  German 
policy,  it  is  Japanese  policy,  and  in  both  cases 
forced  upon  them,  and  war  is  sometimes  an  in- 


20         THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

strument  of  policy.  You  can  no  more  wall  in  a 
nation,  cramp  it,  confine  it,  threaten  it  with  star- 
vation, without  a  protest  and  a  struggle,  than 
you  can  do  the  same  to  an  individual.  Whether 
a  man  will  fight  for  his  life  or  not  is  not  a  ques- 
tion, it  is  a  fact.  Japan  has  already  given  the 
lie  to  our  advocates  of  peace  at  any  price  in  this 
country  by  annexing  Korea  and  occupying 
Manchuria  by  force  and  in  spite  of  our  treaty 
with  Korea,  one  article  of  which  reads:  "If 
other  Powers  deal  unjustly  with  either  govern- 
ment, the  one  will  exert  its  good  offices,  on  be- 
ing informed  of  the  case,  to  bring  about  an 
amicable  arrangement,  thus  showing  its  friendly 
feeling." 

The  reader  will  understand  the  situation  bet- 
ter with  these  comparisons  at  hand.  The  United 
States  has  a  population  of  about  28  persons  per 
square  mile,  Japan  has  a  population  of  317  to 
the  square  mile,  while  Europe,  with  an  area  in 
square  miles  not  much  larger  than  the  United 
States,  has  a  population  of  390,000,000,  or  a 
density  of  101  to  the  square  mile.  Great  Britain 
has  a  smaller  area  than  Colorado  and  a  density 
of  470,  while  England  alone  has  a  density  of  60.5. 
Belgium  is  less  than  one  and  a  half  times  as  large 
as  Massachusetts,  and  has  a  density  of  616. 
Canada  has  a  density  of  only  1.75.     Italy  is  not 


ON  THE   WAY  TO  THE   EAST     21 

much  larger  than  Nevada,  but  Nevada  has  less 
than  one  person  to  the  square  mile,  and  Italy  293. 
Rhode  Island,  our  most  densely  populated  State, 
has  a  population  of  407  to  the  square  mile;  next 
comes  Massachusetts  with  348. 

Neither  Germany  nor  Japan  has  created  or 
fostered  this  situation.  The  mischief  and  the 
malice  begin  when  they  are  accused  of  what 
they  cannot  help.  But  to  say  the  situation  does 
not  exist  is  ignorant,  silly,  or  sentimental,  de- 
pending upon  the  person  who  speaks.  Nor  am 
I  putting  words  into  the  mouth  of  Germany 
or  Japan  when  I  say  that  both  Germany  and 
Japan  must  find  outlets  for  their  surplus  popu- 
lation; I  am  only  quoting  such  authorities  as  the 
Prime  Minister  of  Japan,  and  the  distinguished 
German  historian  Professor  Hans  Delbruck. 

The  interesting  problem  to  put  to  oneself  is, 
how  is  the  hydra-headed  democracy  in  England 
and  America,  easy-going  and  money-making,  to 

•/DO  i  O ' 

face  Germany,  governed  by  its  wise  men,  and 
Japan,  now  as  much  as  a  century  ago,  governed 
by  a  group  of  feudal  nobles,  with  the  mikado, 
who  is  not  merely  obeyed  but  worshipped  by 
the  great  mass  of  the  Japanese,  at  their  back. 

I  made  bold,  not  long  ago,  to  publish  a  serious 
study  of  the  internal  and  domestic  situation  in 
England;    and  the  following  pages  attempt  to 


22  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

deal  with  the  external  and  imperial  relations  of 
Great  Britain,  because  as  Americans  we  are 
vitally  interested  to  know  how  soon,  and  to  what 
extent,  we  are  to  be  involved  in  imperial  mat- 
ters in  an  even  graver  measure  than  now. 

Great  Britain,  with  its  11,500,000  square  miles 
of  territory  to  protect,  with  its  400,000,000  of 
people  to  govern,  must  necessarily  invite  the 
scrutiny  of  Americans  interested  in  the  welfare 
of  their  own  country.  One  need  hardly  pay 
heed  to  those  foolish  or  sensitive  persons  who 
look  upon  such  scrutiny  as  an  impertinence. 

In  1907  the  official  figures  show  that  the 
United  Kingdom  purchased  $900,000,000  of 
food,  drink,  and  tobacco  in  foreign  countries; 
$850,000,000  of  raw  materials  and  partly  manu- 
factured articles;  $050,000,000  of  manufactured 
articles.  Great  Britain,  with  its  population  of 
some  45,000,000  odd,  is  supporting  foreign  in- 
dustries, and  enriching  foreign  nations,  ourselves 
among  the  number,  to  the  extent  of  $2,400,- 
000,000  annually.  Her  self-governing  colonies 
bought  foreign  goods  to  the  amount  of  $500,000,- 
000,  and  her  crown  colonies  to  the  amount  of 
$125,000,000.  Here  is  a  customer  who  buys 
over  $3,000,000,000  worth  of  goods  annually, 
and  yet  cannot  find  sufficient  employment  at 
home  for  her  own  people,  who  arc    emigrating 


ON   THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST     23 

to  other  countries.  Here  is  a  customer  who  per- 
sists in  fooling  himself  with  the  belief  that  he  is  a 
free  trader,  when  his  net  receipts  from  customs 
are  $1,402,500,000  a  year,  and  his  net  receipts 
from  excise  are  $1,514,000,000,  or  a  total  taxation 
of  food  and  drink  amounting  to  $2,910,500,000. 
In  addition  to  this  he  has  the  highest,  the  most 
costly,  and  the  most  pernicious  tariff  in  the  world 
in  his  trades-unions,  which  put  a  tax  on  every 
laborer's  time  and  every  laborer's  hand  and  arm. 
Men  are  only  allowed  to  work  so  many  hours,  and 
to  produce  so  much.  This  is  the  tariff  which  is 
ruining  England  slowlv  but  surely.  America  is 
really  a  free-trade  country  as  compared  with  my 
delightfully  dull  friend  John  Bull,  who  goes  to 
the  extreme  length  of  taxing  time  and  taxing 
energy,  thus  adding  enormously  to  the  cost  price 
of  everything  he  sells,  and  thus  building  a  tariff 
wall  against  his  own  workmen  in  their  attempts 
to  compete  with  the  foreigner.  It  is  the  most 
cruel  of  all  forms  of  taxation. 

British  railways  also  add  to  this  burdensome 
tariff  by  declining  to  quote,  as  do  German  and 
American  railways,  low  rates  for  goods  destined 
for  export.  There  is  much  criticism  of  Ameri- 
can railway  finance,  but  what  should  we  think  of 
such  a  situation  as  the  following  ?  A  German 
manufacturer   can   send   goods   from   Hamburg 


24         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

to  Birmingham  via  London  at  a  much  less  rate 
than  a  London  manufacturer  can  send  goods  di- 
rect to  Birmingham.  Goods  can  be  delivered 
in  Birmingham  from  New  York  at  a  less  price 
than  from  Liverpool.  The  British  manufact- 
urer pays  from  twenty  to  thirty  per  cent  higher 
freight  rates  on  goods  sent  to  West  Africa,  South 
Africa,  Australia,  and  in  many  cases  New  Zea- 
land, than  do  German  or  American  shippers. 
At  any  rate,  this  was  the  case  as  late  as  April, 
1909.  It  is  worth  noting  in  this  connection  that 
the  railway  rates  in  the  United  States  are  much 
lower  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  The 
average  railway  rate  per  ton  per  mile  in  this 
country  in  1909,  was  7.63  mills;  and  the  rates  on 
the  roads  ha  vino-  great  density  of  traffic,  or 
handling  mainly  cheap  and  bulky  commodities, 
are  even  lower.  The  average  rate  per  ton  per 
mile  on  all  traffic  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
is  6.3  mills;  of  the  Illinois  Central,  5.8  mills; 
of  the  Lake  Shore  and  Michigan  Southern,  .5.27 
mills;  and  of  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio.  4.33 
mills;  while  the  average  rate  per  ton  per  mile  on 
the  railways  of  France  is  14  mills;  and  on  those 
of  Germany,  13  mills. 

The  cost  per  mile  of  American  railways  av- 
erages $54,421;  of  the  railways  of  the  United 
Kingdom,    $-273,438;    of    the    German    Empire, 


ON  THE    WAY  TO  THE   EAST     25 

$102,435;  of  France,  $133,871;  of  Belgium, 
$162,236;  and  the  present  capitalization  of  Amer- 
ican railroads  on  a  mileage  basis  is  shown  to  be, 
by  the  most  recent  investigations  of  the  Inter- 
state Commerce  Commission,  only  slightly  more 
to-day  than  it  was  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago.1 

As  I  write,  in  June,  1910,  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  is  presenting  his  year's  budget 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  I  have  just 
heard  that  House  cheering  the  statement  that 
Great  Britain's  next  year's  expenses  will  amount 
to  nearly  $1,000,000,000,  or  £198,000,000;  that 
between  1899  and  1909  the  expenditure  on  the 
navy  increased  from  $120,000,000  to  $200,000,- 
000;  on  the  army  from  $100,000,000  to  $140,- 
000,000;  on  the  civil  service  from  $185,000,000 
to  the  enormous  sum  of  $330,000,000,  or  an  in- 
crease of  seventy-eight  per  cent.  Great  Britain's 
expenditures  on  army,  navy,  civil  service,  pau- 
pers, old-age  pensioners,  the  insane,  the  feeble- 
minded, are  a  tribute  to  her  wealth  indeed. 

No  other  country  could  drive  her  workingmen 
to  emigrate,  could  tax  her  productive  power  by 
trades-unions  regulations,  see  her  birth-rate  di- 
minishing, and  cheer  her  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 

1  "  Waterways— Their  Limitations  and  Possibilities."  An  address 
before  the  National  Rivers  and  Harbors  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  1910,  by  Frederic  A.  Delano.  "  Cost,  Capitalization  and 
Estimated  Value  of  American  Railways,"  by  Slason  Thompson. 


26         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

chequer  as  he  cracks  jokes  on  the  subject  of  these 
figures.  Nothing  is  put  back  into  the  sinking 
fund,  nothing  is  taken  off  the  income  tax,  ex- 
penditure has  almost  exactly  doubled  between 
1890  and  1910,  and  the  national  debt  stands  at 
$3,800,000,000,  or  $86  per  head  of  the  popula- 
tion. I  may  add  that  the  gross  national  debt 
of  the  United  States  in  the  same  year  stood  at 
$2,735,815,000,  or  $32  per  head  of  the  popula- 
tion; the  national  debt  of  Germany  at  $1,078,- 
375,000,  or  $16.50  per  head  of  the  population; 
the  national  debt  of  Japan  at  $1,162,074,850,  or 
$25  per  head  of  the  population;  the  colossal 
national  debt  of  France  at  $6,032,3-44.000,  or 
$153  per  head  of  the  population. 

As  an  admirer  of  John  Bull,  I  wish  to  call 
attention  to  the  good  health  and  good  spirits, 
to  the  cheery,  damn-the-consequences  optimism, 
which  this  situation  illustrates. 

Other  countries  are  being  taxed;  we  in  the 
United  States  are  being  taxed,  but  we  are  bor- 
rowing on  our  motor-cars,  our  aeroplanes,  our 
pianos,  our  jewelry,  our  luxuries,  in  short.  To 
phrase  it  differently,  and  perhaps  to  some  people 
more  cogently,  we  are  merely  pawning  our  easily  - 
done-without  toys;  but  Great  Britain,  with  her 
income  tax  at  war  figures,  and  her  wine  and 
spirits   tax   larger   than   ever,   is   pawning   John 


ON   THE    WAY   TO   THE   EAST     27 

Bull's  coat  and  shoes!  In  the  United  States  we 
have  not  even  scratched  the  surface  of  our  tax- 
able possibilities,  while  in  Great  Britain  it  looks 
as  if  Mrs.  Bull's  shawl  will  have  to  go  next,  and 
they  have  dreary  weather  for  coatless  men  and 
shawlless  women  in  Great  Britain. 

To  the  American  who  has  heard  overmuch  of 
the  extravagance  of  America  and  of  Americans 
of  late  years,  it  is  a  relief  to  hear  Great  Britain's 
present  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  expounding 
jauntily  an  expenditure  of  a  thousand  million 
dollars.  He  and  his  followers  evidently  regard 
thrift  as  a  dreary  virtue. 

If  an  American  returns  from  nearly  a  year's 
journey  through  the  Far  East,  where  Germany, 
Russia,  Japan,  China,  India,  Egypt,  and  Amer- 
ica are  all  keenly  interested  in  this  condition  of 
the  British  Empire,  and  finds  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment apparently  oblivious  of  these  matters,  but 
engrossed  in  playing  a  game  on  the  steps  of  the 
throne,  with  a  handful  of  Irishmen  who  represent 
four  million  people  only,  he  may  be  pardoned 
for  thinking  it  is  business  to  tell  his  countrymen 
what  he  can  of  the  situation.  If  your  neigh- 
bor's house  is  on  fire,  it  would  be  silly  indeed  not 
to  study  the  way  the  chimneys  were  built,  dis- 
cover if  possible  how  the  fire  started,  and  who 
was  careless  or  who  mischievous.     He  would  be 


28  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

a  sensitive  householder  indeed  if  he  considered 
such  an  investigation  impertinent.  If  the  Brit- 
ish Empire  is  not  on  fire,  no  one  will  deny  that 
there  is  much  smoke  and  smouldering  both  at 
home  and  in  India,  in  Egypt,  in  Persia,  in  South 
Africa,  and  elsewhere. 

Oh,  we  have  heard  this  cry  of  "Wolf"  so  often ! 
reply  a  certain  class  of  Englishmen.  Yes,  they 
heard  it  in  Spain,  in  Holland,  they  heard  it  in 
France  shortly  before  1870,  and  heeded  it  not. 
That  fable  of  the  cry  of  "Wolf"  has  done  much 
harm,  because  it  is  misinterpreted.  He  who 
cries  "Wolf"  continually  may  be  silly,  but  what 
of  him  who  does  not  listen  when  the  real  wolf 
appears  ?  Better  listen  every  time  the  cry  is 
heard  than  lose  all  one's  sheep. 

Colonels  Stoppel  and  Lewal  cried  "Wolf" 
about  the  French  army  before  1870,  and  were 
met  with  the  reply  from  the  Minister  of  War  Le 
Boeuf:  "Nous  sommes  archipret  —  jusqu'  au 
dernier  bouton!"  and  shortly  after,  Germany 
crowned  her  emperor  in  Versailles. 

There  are  several  hungry  wolves  about  now, 
and  one  can  almost  see  the  ironical  grin  when 
they  hear  those  martial  heroes,  Stead,  and  Car- 
negie, and  William  Jennings  Bryan,  telling  the 
sheep:  "Oh,  it  is  only  the  old  cry  of  Wolf!" 
One  is  tempted  at  times  to  agree  with  Herbert 


ON  THE   WAY  TO  THE   EAST     29 

Spencer  that  "the  ultimate  result  of  shielding 
men  from  the  effects  of  their  folly  is  to  fill  the 
world  with  fools,"  but  he  lacks  virility  and  pa- 
triotism who  succumbs  to  that  Capuan  tempta- 
tion. Sir  Frederick  Maurice  writes  that  of  the 
one  hundred  and  seventeen  wars  fought  by  Eu- 
ropean nations,  or  the  United  States,  against  civ- 
ilized powers  from  1700  to  1870,  there  are  only 
ten  where  hostilities  were  preceded  by  a  declara- 
tion of  war. 

Three  hundred  millions  of  Great  Britain's  pop- 
ulation are  in  India;  let  us  go  there  and  have  a 
look  at  her  biggest  problem,  and  at  the  neighbors 
of  India  in  China,  Japan,  Manchuria,  Siberia, 
and  Russia. 

"The  true  fulcrum  of  Asiatic  dominion  seems 
to  me  increasingly  to  lie  in  the  Empire  of  Hin- 
dustan. The  secret  of  the  mastery  of  the  world 
is,  if  they  only  knew  it,  in  the  possession  of  the 
British  people."  So  writes  Lord  Curzon.  When 
one  has  travelled  the  length  of  the  Mediterranean 
Sea,  and  then  across  it  from  Marseilles  to  Port 
Said,  through  the  Suez  Canal  and  across  the 
Arabian  Sea  to  Bombay  from  Aden,  one  needs 
no  convincing  and  would  listen  to  no  arguments 
to  the  contrary  that  Great  Britain,  with  India, 
is  the  greatest  empire  the  world  has  seen,  but  that 
Great  Britain  without  India,  and  the  military 


30         THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

and  trade  route  to  India,  would  soon  be  a  negli- 
gible quantity,  a  Spain,  or  Portugal,  or  Holland. 

To  read  through  a  geography  is  dull  business, 
but  to  travel  through  your  geography  is  enlight- 
ening indeed. 

The  first  thing  that  excites  one's  curiosity  is. 
that  there  seems  to  be  little  free  trade  in  this 
journey  to  Bombay.  The  Peninsular  and  Ori- 
ental Steamship  Company  practically  monopo- 
lizes the  passenger  traffic.  I  was  informed  that 
there  was  some  arrangement  with  other  com- 
panies which  left  the  P.  and  O.  Company  a  mo- 
nopoly. As  a  consequence  of  this,  British  gas- 
tronomies have  full  play. 

I  have  eaten  stewed  dog  with  the  Sioux  Ind- 
ians in  our  Northwest;  I  have  eaten  indescrib- 
able stuff  in  Mexico;  I  have  lived  for  weeks 
in  the  middle  of  summer  on  a  war-ship  off  the 
coasts  of  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  on  canned  food ; 
I  have,  I  believe,  eaten  rats  in  Manchuria ;  1 
have,  alas!  overeaten  in  Paris;  I  have  labored 
with  the  stodgy,  heavy  food  of  English  country 
inns,  and  no  harm  has  resulted;  but  when  I 
landed  from  that  P.  and  O.  steamer  at  Bombay 
my  stomach  was  in  tears.  My  fellow  country- 
men will  find  it  hard  to  believe,  but  it  is  a  fact, 
that  on  that  same  steamer  on  her  way  to  some 
of  the  hottest  weather  in  the  world,  in  the  Suez 


ON  THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST     31 

Canal  and  the  Red  Sea,  there  was  only  one  kind 
of  mineral  water  to  be  had,  and  that  only  in 
pints!  Can  pig-headed  stupidity  go  further? 
The  linen  on  my  breakfast  tray  in  the  morning 
was,  for  the  first  two  mornings,  so  besmeared 
and  spotted  with  egg  and  coffee  stains  that  I 
threatened  to  go  to  the  captain.  Remember, 
too,  that  the  fares  on  these  steamers  are  high, 
and  that  we  were  travelling  as  comfortably  as 
the  accommodations  of  the  ship  permitted.  No 
wonder  they  are  losing  their  trade.  But  what 
business  is  it  of  mine  ?  Why  not  go  by  some 
other  line  ?  I  will  be  frank,  also,  in  my  admira- 
tion, and  say  that  when  I  travel  with  my  women 
folk  on  the  water,  I  am  happier  to  think  that 
Americans  or  Englishmen  are  in  command. 
Both  they  and  I  will  have  a  fair  chance,  and  the 
American  or  the  English  captain  will  not  be 
found  among  the  saved  if  their  passengers  are 
not  saved  too.  I  am  bound  in  honor  to  add 
that  the  agent  of  this  same  P.  and  O.  line  in  Cal- 
cutta rendered  me  every  service  in  his  power, 
for  which  I  shall  never  cease  to  be  grateful,  when 
t  sought  his  good  offices  to  help  me  in  getting  an 
invalid  home.  What  do  food  and  drink  matter, 
after  all,  if  one  may  count  upon  efficiency  and 
kindness  in  the  hour  of  distress  and  danger  ?  But 
even  then,  if  it  is  not  my  business,  and  perhaps 


32  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

it  is  not,  to  criticise,  this  is  no  answer  to  the 
hordes  of  houseless,  hungry  men  that  one  .sees 
any  night  on  the  Embankment  in  London,  nor 
to  the  rapidly  increasing  hundreds  of  thousands 
supported  by  the  state  there,  nor  to  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  who  are  emigrating  because  there 
is  no  work  for  them.  They  have  a  right  to  ques- 
tion the  muddling,  unenterprising  methods  of 
those  in  control,  whose  sole  gauge  of  food,  drink, 
and  dirt  is  a  thirteen  per  cent  dividend. 

Even  as  we  leave  the  quay  at  Marseilles  the 
three  races  —  the  English,  the  Indian,  and  the 
French  —  are  exploiting  themselves.  The  Ind- 
ians, three  of  them  doing  one  man's  work,  and 
physically  awkward,  are  loading  and  unloading 
under  the  governing  finger  of  a  silent  English 
officer.  Half  a  dozen  French  girls  between  the 
ages  of  seven  and  twelve  are  dancing  the  can-can, 
as  though  they  were  in  the  Jardin  de  Paris,  and 
soliciting  the  pennies  of  the  passengers. 

A  distinguished  French  physician  has  ex- 
plained the  attitude  of  France  toward  con- 
scription and  race  suicide  by  saying  that  France 
is  hundreds  of  years  in  advance  of  the  rest  of  the 
world  in  civilization,  and  that  the  unruliness  and 
selfishness  and,  as,I  should  term  it,  their  ma- 
tured frivolity,  are  marks  of  a  higher  civilization. 
Some  of  us  call  it  decadence.      In  India  we  an' 


ON   THE    WAY   TO   THE   EAST     33 

to  see  a  civilization,  old  when  the  French  were 
in  skins.  There  too  ambition  is  dead,  and  three 
hundred  millions  are  powerless  in  the  hands  of 
a  few  Englishmen.  Perhaps  civilization  always 
ends  by  giving  up  the  problem  of  life  as  insolu- 
ble, and  settles  down  to  the  studied  frivolity  of 
Paris,  or  to  the  calm  despair  of  India. 

Our  fellow  passengers  are  almost  all  English, 
with  here  and  there  a  returning  Parsi  merchant, 
or  a  French,  German,  or  American  globe-trotter. 
There  are  also  a  number  of  women,  some  young, 
some  of  an  uncertain,  twilight  age,  who  are  go- 
ing out  to  be  married.  It  was  one  of  the  features 
of  travel  all  through  the  East,  I  found.  On  al- 
most every  ship,  under  the  wing  of  the  captain, 
one  met  one  or  more  of  these  women  going  out 
to  marry  men  whose  duties  did  not  permit  them 
to  go  in  search  of  their  brides.  So  far  as  I  could 
see,  the  protection  of  the  captain  was  altogether 
unnecessary.  If  one  may  judge  of  the  loneliness 
of  the  bachelors  in  the  East  by  the  brides  who 
go  out  to  marry  them,  it  must  be  distressing. 
There  are  more  than  a  million  more  women  than 
men  in  England  alone;  the  women  outnumber 
the  men  in  Scotland  also;  only  in  Ireland  is 
there  anything  like  an  equality  of  numbers. 
Such  wealth  of  choice  would  lead,  one  would 
suppose,  to  a  certain  aesthetic  discrimination,  but 


34         THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

apparently  in  these  matters  the  East  has  the  ef- 
fect of  hurrying  the  white  man,  though  in  turn 
the  East  is  not  hurried  by  him. 

"Now  it  is   not  good  for  the  Christian's  health  to  hustle 

the  Aryan  brown, 
For  the  Christian  riles,  and  the  Aryan   smiles,  and  he 

weareth  the  Christian  down; 
And  the  end  of  the  fight  is  a  tombstone  white  with  the 

name  of  the  late  deceased, 
And   the  epitaph  drear:    'A  fool  lies  here  who  tried  to 

hustle  the  East.'" 

So  writes  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling,  who  easily  sur- 
passes any  man  of  our  breed,  in  his  power  of  im- 
aginative analysis. 

Tell  me  no  more  of  the  American  twang!  It 
is  distressing,  if  you  please,  but  having  travelled 
many  days  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  English 
voice,  I  much  prefer  the  rank  infidelity  of  the 
American  whining  twang  to  the  guttural,  not  to 
say  catarrhal,  sing-song  of  Anglican  vocal  con- 
formity. Some  of  the  more  piercing  English 
voices  may  be  likened  unto  diminutive  steam- 
whistles  suffering  from  bronchitis. 

He  is  a  fussy  traveller  indeed  who  pays  much 
attention  to  such  matters  as  these  when  he  is 
sailing  through  the  Mediterranean  to  the  land 
of  the  Great  Mughal  for  the  first  time.  These 
are   mere  comments   to   put  away  in   the  card- 


ON  THE   WAY  TO  THE   EAST     35 

catalogue  of  one's  brain  for  possible  future 
reference. 

What  an  embroidered  sea  it  is!  Fringed  by 
Spain,  France,  Italy,  Greece,  Persia,  Palestine, 
Egypt,  Arabia.  We  see  the  land  of  the  Phar- 
aohs, of  Moses,  Jesus,  Muhammad,  Alexander, 
Caesar,  Hannibal,  Napoleon.  We  sail  through 
the  religions,  the  law,  the  literature,  the  art,  the 
traditions  that  ruled,  and  rule,  the  world. 
Here  are  the  Pentateuch,  the  Psalms,  Job,  the 
Gospels,  the  Greek  drama  and  comedy,  the 
Koran,  the  Epic  of  Antar,  the  literature  and  law 
of  the  Latins  and  the  Italians,  and  the  greatest 
of  comedies,  Don  Quixote.  If  the  Avon  emp- 
tied into  this  sea,  it  could  claim  all  the  greatest 
names  in  literature.  And  what  a  literary  gamut 
it  is  from  Don  Quixote  to  the  thirteenth  chapter 
of  I  Corinthians! 

We  sail  past  Rome,  Athens,  Carthage,  Alex- 
andria, Jerusalem,  Mecca,  and  through  that  nar- 
row blue  ribbon  of  the  Suez  Canal,  which  binds 
together  the  greatest  empire  of  them  all,  the  Brit- 
ish Empire.  It  is  the  sea  of  all  the  most  poig- 
nant associations  of  the  world.  No  one's  mem- 
ories are  complete  without  it.  Not  to  know  the 
Mediterranean  and  its  associations  is  not  to  be 
educated,  is  not  to  be  a  man  of  the  real  world, 
is  not  to  know  the  history  of  the  world,  for  the 


36         THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

tides  of  this  sea  are  the  pulse-beats  of  the  heart 
of  history.  We  Americans  are  merely  ethnologi- 
cal mushrooms  in  a  grove  of  palms  and  cedars. 

At  Port  Said  we  are  in  the  anteroom  of  the 
East.  I  do  not  intend  to  write  a  guide-book. 
Messrs.  Murray  and  Baedeker  have  too  many 
literary  parasites  already,  but  I  must  let  the  ink 
bubble  occasionally  with  my  personal  delight, 
and  perhaps  to  old  travellers  my  naif  enjoyment 
of  every  day  of  those  many  months  spent  in  the 
East.  I  gazed  at  those  Arabs  at  Port  Said,  I 
studied  their  sensual,  and  in  many  cases  dia- 
bolical, faces  with  awe  and  interest.  In  Europe 
other  white  men  are  different,  to  be  sure,  but  it 
is  possible  to  account  for  the  differences,  to  ana- 
lyze the  differences  in  a  superficially  satisfactory 
way.  But  these  human  beings  are  not  merely 
different,  they  are  something  else. 

That  tall,  naked,  black  man,  with  his  head 
shaven,  sitting  in  this  broiling  sun,  which  would 
knock  me  over  in  half  an  hour  were  my  head  not 
covered  with  cork  and  linen,  and  protected  be- 
sides by  a  white  umbrella ;  this  man,  with  his 
prognathic  jaw,  his  shining  teeth,  his  legs  and 
shoulders  looking  as  though  they  had  been  re- 
cently polished,  his  eyes  with  that  clearness  and 
sheen  in  them,  as  though  they  were  swimming  in 
some  liquid,  like  a  compass,  he  may  be  common- 


ON   THE    WAY   TO   THE   ExVST     37 

place  to  these  other  travellers,  but  I  lean  over  the 
side  and  gloat  over  him. 

This  is  the  blood  that  slashed  through  Europe 
and  the  East,  crying  that  theirs  was  the  one  true 
God,  and  that  Muhammad  was  his  one  true 
prophet;  this  is  the  fellow  I  looked  at  in  my 
illustrated  geography  many,  many  years  ago  in- 
stead of  committing  the  text  that  framed  him  to 
memory.  I  can  see  those  vignettes  now.  I  can 
see  the  Malay  with  his  pagoda  hat,  the  Indian 
prince  with  his  bejewelled  turban,  the  Japanese 
with  his  straw  coat,  the  Burmese  lady  with  her 
huge  cigar,  the  Chinese  with  his  shaven  forehead, 
and  his  pigtail.  Those  baby  lessons  in  eth- 
nology, how  I  should  have  devoured  the  text  had 
I  dreamed  that  one  day  I  was  actually  to  eat, 
and  talk,  and  shoot,  and  ride,  and  visit  with  these 
people,  and  even  take  photographs  of  them  with  a 
machine  that  was  not  even  invented  in  those  days. 

I  make  no  apology  for  gazing  at  that  boat-load 
of  Arabs,  huddled  together  waiting  to  coal,  or 
floating  away  having  done  their  day's  work.  It 
is  my  first  real  sip  of  the  East,  and  I  am  far  more 
excited  even  than  when  I  played  my  first  game  of 
base-ball  in  a  real  uniform,  made  in  the  sewing- 
room  ;  or  when  I  marched  up  to  take  a  painfully 
attenuated  degree  at  Harvard;  or  when  I  made 
my  first  speech  in  public.    These  are  all  exciting 


38         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

episodes,  but  now  I  am  voyaging  into  the  world 
from  whence  we  all  came.  I  am  actually  getting 
near  the  country  where  they  invented  Adam,  and 
Eve,  and  Noah.  In  a  few  hours  I  shall  see  the 
place  where  Moses  made  a  reputation  as  an  am- 
phibious commissariat  which  in  my  boyhood  im- 
pressed me  far  more  than  his  unequalled  ability 
as  a  law-giver.  Moses,  and  Jesus,  and  Muham- 
mad were  all  born  in  this  region,  in  this  climate, 
in  this  atmosphere,  yes,  I  am  bound  to  confess 
that  it  was  exciting. 

The  best  books  on  the  East,  as  every  one 
knows,  are  the  Bible  and  the  Arabian  Nights, 
and  yet  I  found  most  travellers  were  saturating 
themselves  with  snippity  descriptions  of  monu- 
ments and  places,  with  tabloids  of  history,  witli 
technical  paragraphs  on  architecture  and  the 
ethnic  religions,  with  figures  about  the  height  of 
this  and  the  length  of  that,  or  condensed  statis- 
tics of  exports  and  imports,  and  the  tonnage 
through  the  Suez  Canal,  and  dates  about  the 
Pharaohs,  and  the  Mughals.  No  wonder  thev 
see  nothing,  know  nothing,  enjoy  nothing,  and 
come  home  bringing  a  few  expletives,  adjectives, 
and  photographs,  which  can  be  had  for  a  small 
price  either  in  New  York  or  in  London. 

The  first  thing  to  do  in  going  to  the  East  is 
to  turn  your  education  out  on  your  desk  so  that 


ON   THE    WAY  TO   THE   EAST     39 

you  can  get  at  the  bottom  of  it,  and  there  you 
will  find  the  Bible,  and  the  Arabian  Nights,  and 
the  Odyssey,  and  the  Iliad,  and  Virgil,  and  Herod- 
otus, and  Xenophon,  and  you  will  realize  what 
a  fool  you  were  not  to  have  devoted  more  time  to 
them  when  you  were  asked  to  do  so.  Guide- 
books can  get  you  to  the  East,  but  they  do  not 
get  you  inside.  It  is  temperament,  that  counts, 
not  trains. 

It  must  be  about  as  amusing  to  visit  the  East 
with  a  dimly  informed  courier,  as  to  be  taken 
through  the  Louvre  by  a  page-boy  from  the  hotel ; 
or  to  visit  the  British  Museum,  with  the  driver  of 
the  cab  whom  you  happen  to  hail  to  take  you 
there.  Having  been  in  the  East,  I  can  only  say 
to  other  travellers  that  I  would  not  waste  even 
a  week's  time  in  all  the  East,  with  only  the  re- 
sources of  the  average  tourist  at  my  command. 
It  was  the  unstinted,  and  instructed,  and  expe- 
rienced hospitality  of  the  English  in  India  and 
China,  and  of  the  Japanese  in  Japan,  Korea,  and 
Manchuria,  that  made  my  visit  profitable  and 
immensely  enjoyable.  Through  them,  and  the 
native  princes  of  India,  I  was  given  a  universal 
passport,  and  welcomed  as  a  chartered  and  priv- 
ileged guest,  and  the  burden  of  my  debt  to  them 
for  that  glorious  year  is  beyond  lightening  by 
any  poor  words  of  mine. 


40         THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Even  these  first  Orientals  out  here  on  the 
fringe  seem  to  say  to  me:  Beware  of  the  men 
who  are  ever  itching  to  be  doing  something,  who 
cannot  wait.  They  must  be  cowards  at  bottom, 
afraid  of  themselves  or  of  the  world !  And  after 
these  many  months  I  realize  that  this  is,  to  the 
Westerner,  the  disturbing  message  of  the  whole 
East,  and  I  wonder  if  they  are  right.  Perhaps 
there  are  two  forms  of  fatalism,  the  fatalism  of 
despair,  and  the  fatalism  of  confidence,  and  there 
you  have  the  East  and  the  West,  never  to  be  rec- 
onciled. 

The  first  thing  one  notices  on  going  ashore  for 
a  few  hours  at  Port  Said,  is  an  illustration  of  the 
methods  of  that  British  race,  whose  most  notable 
and  admirable  characteristic  is  their  ability  in 
the  governing  of  alien  peoples.  An  English  po- 
liceman, in  the  uniform  of  the  Khedive,  protects 
me  from  the  yelping  boatmen,  with  the  same  im- 
perturbable good  humor  with  which  I  am  so 
familiar  in  Piccadilly  or  the  Strand.  His  coun- 
tenance changes  slightly  under  different  circum- 
stances. When  he  marches  alongside  the  ten 
thousand  suffragettes  on  their  way  to  the  Albert 
Hall  he  wears  the  amused  expression,  as  of 
one  who  feels  that  he  impersonates  there  and 
then  an  unanswerable  reply  to  all  their  shrillness, 
both    physical    and    vocal.     When    he    convoys 


ON   THE    WAY  TO  THE   EAST     41 

thousands  from  the  East  End  to  Hyde  Park  he 
is  more  serious,  but  there  again  he  looks,  in  his 
steady,  patient  manhood,  an  answer,  even  to 
them.  On  the  boat-landing  at  Port  Said  he 
seems  more  bored,  as  of  a  man  tired  of  brushing 
aside  flies,  but  his  behavior  is  ever  the  same. 

The  journey  through  the  Suez  Canal,  a  dis- 
tance of  about  one  hundred  miles,  is  a  slow 
one,  as  we  may  not  wash  away  these  banks, 
which  cost  eighty  million  dollars  to  build,  with 
the  swash  of  a  too-rapid  progress.  Watchmen, 
crouching  about  their  small  fires  at  night,  dot 
the  shores  on  both  sides.  For  the  first  time  I  see 
camels  actually  at  work,  own  brothers  to  those 
Barnum  &  Bailey  loafers  of  my  boyhood.  In 
the  glare  of  the  searchlight,  the  sandy  desert  on 
both  sides  of  the  canal  is  so  bright  that  every 
now  and  again  one  catches  a  glimpse  of  a  fox, 
jackal,  or  hyena,  and  all  through  the  night  one 
hears  their  cries.  The  sunsets,  the  light,  and 
the  stillness  are  all  different,  all  new  to  me. 
The  sunsets  are  sunsets  of  shade,  rather  than 
colors,  and  De  Tocqueville  is  right  when  he  says : 
"Ce  sont  les  nuances  qui  se  querellent,  non  les 
couleurs."  There  is  a  kaleidoscope  brilliancy 
about  these  cloudless  sunsets,  a  stabbing  at  your 
eyes  with  vivid  shafts  and  shades,  with  plenty 
of  orange  and  purple  and  brown  in  them,  that 


42         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

make  me  wish  I  were  an  artist,  and  which  con- 
vert me  at  once  to  the  truthfulness  which  I  had 
disbelieved  of  many  Eastern  sketches.  The 
light  seems  to  be  something  you  are  looking 
through ;  and  the  stillness  makes  you  lonely  even 
with  some  one  sitting  beside  you.  The  darkness 
comes  down  all  through  the  East  with  incredi- 
ble quickness.  You  can  read  your  book,  and 
then  of  a  sudden  you  need  a  lantern  to  see  your 
way.  The  sun  does  not  come  up,  or  go  down, 
it  shoots  up  and  down.  These  people  live 
mentally  in  a  perpetual  twilight,  but  physically 
they  are  always  in  a  blaze  of  light  or  in  pitch- 
darkness.  Perhaps  they  enjoy  keeping  their 
minds  in  a  state  of  dawn,  or  twilight,  as  a 
protest. 

After  the  Suez  Canal  comes  the  Red  Sea, 
and  on  the  Arabian  coast,  about  eight  hundred 
miles  south,  is  Jiddah.  I  have  no  interest  in 
Jiddah,  but  Jiddah  is  the  seaport  of  Mecca,  and 
somehow  the  word  Mecca  reverberates  in  my 
brain.  I  have  been  wont  to  mention  Seringa- 
patam,  Kamchatka,  Timbuctoo,  and  Mecca  and 
Seoul,  as  far-away,  fairy  sort  of  places,  that  I 
was  no  more  likely  to  be  near,  much  less  to  visit, 
than,  say,  Mars.  That  comes  of  living  in  the 
AYest.  But  here  I  am,  and  I  cannot  get  quite 
awake  to  the  fact. 


ON  THE   WAY  TO  THE   EAST     43 

Jiddah,  too,  actually  has  the  tomb  of  Eve. 
That  impresses  my  imagination  very  much.  Not 
that  this  first  languor  of  the  East  devitalizes  my 
rather  unorthodox  upbringing,  tempting  me  to 
the  historical  acceptance  of  Eve.  My  theology 
is  unshattered,  but  I  am  bound  to  say  I  have  a 
friendly  feeling  for  the  imaginative  proficiency  of 
the  man  who,  perhaps,  left  his  money  to  build 
a  tomb  for  Eve!  It  is  at  least  a  good  schooling 
in  cosmopolitan  charity,  to  be  near  people  who 
repair  to  the  tomb  of  Eve  as  to  a  sanctuary; 
people  so  calm  and  so  unflurried  by  the  welter  of 
the  world,  that  they  ignore  the  inextricable  moral 
confusion  into  which  that  lady  is  accused,  by 
many,  of  having  plunged  us. 

Later  on  I  am  to  be  the  guest  of  a  charming 
Eastern  lady,  Her  Highness  the  Begum  of  Bho- 
pal,  and  she  is  to  present  me  with  a  volume  of 
her  travels.  She  is  a  Muhammadan,  and  has 
made  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca.  In  this  volume 
she  writes  of  Jiddah,  and  mentions  the  tomb  of 
Eve  and  writes:  "Eve  was  the  wife  of  Adam." 
It  is  paralyzing  to  Western  orthodoxy  and  to 
Western  conceit  to  realize  that  this  lady  feels 
called  upon  to  tell  her  readers,  that  Eve  was  the 
wife  of  Adam.  It  clears  the  mind  of  a  lot  of 
underbrush  when  one  realizes  that  in  the  East, 
among  the  eight  or   nine   hundred   millions   of 


44         THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

people  we  are  to  visit,  one  must  introduce  Eve 
as  the  wife  of  Adam,  and  even  then  be  asked,  in 
all  probability,  Who  was  Adam  ?  How  differ- 
ent must  the  standards  be  in  a  country,  and 
among  peoples,  where  Eve  is  distant,  dim,  un- 
known! It  is  true  that  even  among  ourselves 
Eve  wears  but  a  scanty  garment  even  of  tradi- 
tion, but  now  I  am  to  travel  in  lands  where  she 
has  not  even  a  figment  of  the  imagination  to 
clothe  her. 

I  begin  to  understand  that  all  of  us  Occidentals 
are  provincial,  that  we  have  overestimated  our 
importance,  our  influence,  and  the  effect  of  our 
impact  upon  the  Orientals.  I  shall  try  to  re- 
member, as  I  study  these  people,  that  Eve  is 
introduced,  in  this  other  world  as  the  wife  of 
Adam.  It  is  already  becoming  evident  that 
many  things  that  I  have  considered  as  of  funda- 
mental importance  have  no  significance  here  at 
all.  All  the  clocks,  and  yardsticks,  and  weights 
and  measures  are  different,  or  do  not  exist  at  all. 
We  are  going  into  a  world  where  the  best  of  us, 
no  matter  what  our  education  and  experience, 
can  only  grope  about.  We  may  have  conquered 
the  Eastern  world,  but,  apparently,  we  have 
changed  it  very  little.  Our  much-vaunted  civ- 
ilization does  not  impress  them,  as  we  think  it 
should.     They   look   upon   our  civilization,   ap- 


ON   THE    WAY   TO   THE   EAST      45 

parently,  as  an  attempt  to  make  men  comfort- 
able, in  a  life  which  men  ought  not  to  love. 

"The  brooding  East  with  awe  beheld 
Her  impious  younger  world. 
The  Roman  tempest  swell'd  and  swell'd 
And  on  her  head  was  hurl'd. 

"The  East  bow'd  low  before  the  blast 
In  patient,  deep  disdain; 
She  let  the  legions  thunder  past, 
And  plunged  in  thought  again." 


II 

THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA 

IT  is  because  they  are  very  sophisticated,  or 
because  they  know  the  wonders  beyond, 
that  certain  travellers  tell  you  that  Bombay 
is  only  the  entrance  to  India,  and  not  interesting. 
One  can  make  some  very  accurate  guesses  about 
the  people  inside  the  house  from  the  condition 
of  the  front  steps,  the  cleanliness  of  the  bell- 
handle  or  knocker,  and  the  manners  and  appear- 
ance of  the  servant  who  opens  the  door.  At 
least  I  am  almost  unconsciously  in  the  habit  of 
doing  so,  and  one  is  apt  to  be  more  cheerful  at 
the  drawing-room  entrance  if  the  guardian  of 
the  outer  door  gives  you  a  pleasant  greeting. 
The  British  front  door  to  India,  or  Govern- 
ment House  Bombay,  gave  us  such  a  pleasant 
greeting  that  we  were  cheerful  throughout  the 
rest  of  our  stay,  despite  hardships  and  illness 
here  and  there. 

First  we  went  to  the  new  hotel,  considered  the 
best  in  India,  but  we  were  there  for  a  very  short 
time,  for  after  delivering  various  letters  of  intro- 

46 


THE    GATEWAY   TO   INDIA         47 

duction  we  were  promptly  invited  to  become  the 
guests  of  His  Excellency  the  Governor  of  Bom- 
bay. But  already  at  the  hotel  I  saw  many  things. 
Along  the  halls  outside  the  guest-rooms  I  saw 
little  knots  of  native  servants,  in  groups  of  from 
two  to  half  a  dozen,  according  to  the  size  of  the 
master's  family.  How  little  an  Indian  needs, 
even  with  the  good  pay  of  a  servant,  was  plainly 
evident.  They  had  their  beds  and  cooking  uten- 
sils with  them,  and  at  certain  hours  one  saw 
them  eating,  or  sleeping,  huddled  together  out- 
side their  master's  door. 

Our  rooms  were  large  and  airy.  There  was 
only  the  necessary  furniture,  no  hangings,  and 
our  own  bedding  was  used  on  the  beds.  Every- 
body carries  his  own  bedding  in  India,  and  out- 
side the  large  establishments  of  the  government 
officials,  everywhere  it  is  needed.  You  are  sup- 
posed to  carry  your  own  bedding  with  you  just  as 
you  carry  your  own  tooth-brush.  In  the  trains, 
and  there  are  very  long  train  journeys,  by  slow 
trains,  in  India,  in  the  guest-houses  of  the  native 
princes,  in  camp  of  course  always,  and  in  the 
hotels  and  inns,  your  own  bedding  is  a  neces- 
sity. Indeed  you  can  scarcely  carry  too  much  in 
India  if  you  wish  to  be  comfortable.  All  sorts 
of  clothing,  from  fur  coats  to  the  thinnest  linen, 
all  sorts  of  hats  from  a  cap  to  a  pith-helmet,  a 


48         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

spirit-lamp,  a  folding  table  and  chair,  a  small 
amount  of  tinned  or  bottled  food  and  a  supply  of 
mineral  water  for  the  train,  a  large  supply  of 
linen  and  underclothing,  for  one  changes  often, 
and  the  laundry  work  is  done  by  beating  on  flat 
stones.  The  changes  of  temperature  from  noon 
till  midnight  are  startling.  One  must  give  up 
cold  baths  and  take  to  tepid  or  hot  water,  and  be 
careful,  indeed,  what,  and  how  much,  one  eats  and 
drinks.  No  alcohol  before  sunset,  and  very  little 
then,  and  the  plainest  and  most  nourishing  food. 

In  this  land,  as  large  almost  as  the  whole  of 
Europe,  there  are  only  a  few  large  cities  where 
one  can  buy  any  of  the  luxuries  or  comforts  of 
life  outside  the  obvious,  and  what  you  need  you 
must  carry  with  you.  On  a  large  scale  you  do 
what  the  native  does,  you  carry  your  household 
gods  and  goods  about  with  you. 

How  differently  "pick  up  your  bed  and  walk" 
sounds  in  your  ears  when  you  see  a  whole  popu- 
lation of  hundreds  of  millions  actually  carrying 
their  beds  with  them  whenever  they  move.  Why 
should  one  take  heed  as  to  what  one  shall  eat,  or 
drink,  or  wear,  when  a  handful  of  rice,  a  thimble- 
ful of  water,  and  a  loin-cloth  suffice.  The  group 
of  servants  in  front  of  their  master's  door  at  the 
hotel,  or  the  hundreds  of  families  I  have  seen 
travelling  by  train,  by  bullock-cart,  or  even  on 


THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         49 

foot,  have  squeezed  and  sifted  life's  necessities 
down  to  the  vanishing-point. 

I  can  see  why  the  gentle  Prince  of  Peace  ap- 
pealed to  the  Roman,  the  German,  the  Scandi- 
navian, the  Briton.  Those  heavy-eating,  hard- 
drinking,  hard-fighting  peoples,  who  must  have 
skins,  and  furs,  and  huts,  and  fires,  or  die,  saw 
in  Him  and  His  teachings  the  very  antipodes  of 
all  they  were,  or  strove  to  be.  Not  so  the  gentle 
Hindu.  These  are  not  miracles  to  him;  indeed 
along  material  lines,  he  and  his  ancestors,  so 
far  as  any  man  can  recall  history,  have  lived 
in  that  way. 

India  has  sixty-two  million  Muhammadans 
to-day,  and  but  very  few  Christians,  and  most  of 
these  Muhammadans  are  converts.  The  Mu- 
hammadan  conquerors  brought  few  women  with 
them,  and  their  direct  descendants  are  few  in 
number  to-day  compared  with  their  converts. 
To  slay  the  idolater  and  the  heretic,  and  to  be 
recompensed  in  another  world  of  fascinating 
material,  not  to  say  sensual  gratifications,  for 
so  doing,  and  in  this  world  to  be  received  at 
once  on  conversion  into  the  great  Muhammadan 
brotherhood,  where  there  is  no  caste  and  no  irre- 
movable inequalities,  this  has  appealed  to  the 
Indian  far  more  than  the  doctrines  or  promises 
of  Christianity. 


50         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

Muhammadanism  is  purely  democratic.  There 
is  no  caste  even  of  priests.  He  who  mounts  the 
pulpit  and  prays,  preaches,  or  reads  from  the 
Koran  is  only  an  equal  among  equals,  and  not  set 
apart  or  considered  above  others.  It  is  much  like 
the  democratic  ways  of  early  Puritan  Congre- 
gationalism, when  the  sages  would  have  snorted 
indeed  at  the  thought  that  their  religious  leader, 
was  in  the  least  tainted  with  any  such  doctrine 
as  the  indelibility  of  the  priesthood,  or  powers 
of  confession  or  absolution,  other  than  those  of 
any  father  at  his  own  fireside.  Congregational 
ministers  of  the  old  type  were  leaders  in  politics, 
were  sent  to  Congress,  and  abroad  as  ambassa- 
dors, and  took  a  conspicuous  part  in  town  meet- 
ings, and  would  have  scoffed  at  any  insinuation 
that  they  were  priests,  or  not  as  other  men,  in  the 
homely  duties  and  responsibilities  of  daily  life. 
Alas,  as  society  becomes  more  complicated,  it 
demands  easy  and  simple  classifications  and  no- 
menclature, and  thus  a  priest  is  a  priest,  a 
banker  a  banker,  a  professor  a  professor,  with- 
out much  time  or  thought  given  to  shades  and 
differences. 

This  feature  of  the  Muhammadan  creed 
appeals  strongly  to  the  caste-bound  and  neg- 
lected Hindu,  who  must  be  born  again,  and 
born  again  in  no  metaphorical  sense,  to  move 


THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA        51 

an  inch  above  the  social  status  allotted  to  him 
by  his  own  religion.  Besides  this,  the  Christian 
brotherliness  and  love  in  India  are  names,  not 
facts.  The  low-caste  Hindu  may  become  what 
his  abilities  lead  to  amongst  the  Muhammadans, 
he  may  become  a  great  man  among  them,  and 
marry  into  the  proudest  family.  Their  wel- 
come is  a  real  one.  But  what  Christian  mission- 
ary even,  let  alone  the  layman,  offers  his  daugh- 
ters or  sisters  to  the  Hindu  convert?  There  is 
not  even  a  Christian  club  in  India  of  which  he 
can  become  a  member.  The  proudest  native 
prince  in  India  is  not  allowed  inside  the  doors 
of  the  Bombay  Yacht  Club,  even  as  a  guest. 

One  often  hears  Protestantism  and  Catholi- 
cism compared,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter, 
because  the  Protestant  countries  are  more  pros- 
perous, wealthier,  more  powerful.  This  same 
reasoning  is  used  when  comparing  Christianity 
with  Brahmanism,  Confucianism,  Buddhism, 
but  the  argument  does  not  lie,  as  the  lawyers  say. 
To  the  Hindu  mind  it  is  no  argument  at  all. 
His  ideal  is  to  get  out  of  the  world,  not  to  get 
what  he  can  out  of  it,  and  stay  in  it.  That  one's 
beliefs  should  be  scientifically  true,  or  that  they 
should  produce  in  an  individual  or  in  a  nation 
powers  of  wealth-getting  or  comfort-making,  is 
not  only  not  required  of  his  faith  by  the  Orien- 


52  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

tal,  but  he  looks  upon  such  tests  as  preposterous. 
If  plague  or  famine  come  to  a  whole  province, 
or  loss  or  illness  come  to  him  individually,  or  the 
will  of  a  ruler,  whom  he  believes  to  be  divinely 
guided,  brings  disgrace  upon  him,  all  these  are 
accepted  as  inevitable.  It  is  part  of  the  mys- 
terious and  incomprehensible  divine  plan,  and 
leads  to  no  questioning,  criticism,  or  even  com- 
plaint of  the  ways  of  God  with  man.  We  recog- 
nize self-sacrifice  and  unselfishness  as  spiritual 
graces  to  be  cultivated,  but  the  great  majority 
of  Christians  look  upon  an  unsuccessful  Chris- 
tian as  lacking  in  some  essential  manner  the  full 
dower  of  his  faith.  If  the  Hindu  believed  that 
his  faith  forbade  working  on  Sunday,  or  forbade 
divorce  for  example,  he  would  sacrifice  himself 
rather  than  disobey.  We  on  the  contrary  have 
allowed  laws  of  economics,  and  laws  of  health 
and  freedom  to  over-ride  the  dicta  of  the  priest. 

I  am  not  deciding  between  the  two,  though  I 
believe  we  are  right:  I  am  merelv  noting;  differ- 
ences.  which  must  be  kept  in  mind  by  the  stu- 
dent of  the  East,  if  he  wishes  to  gain  something 
more  of  an  understanding  of  the  situation,  than 
the  mere  superficial  contempt,  and  cobwebby  ex- 
periences, of  a  self-satisfied  traveller. 

The  conversion  of  the  thousand  million  brown 
and  vellow  men  of  Asia,  by  the  five  hundred  mill- 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         53 

ion  Christians,  is  so  far  away  in  the  distance  that 
no  eye,  even  of  the  imagination,  can  see  so  far 
down  the  aisles  of  time. 

Far  be  it  from  me,  a  Christian,  to  discourage 
the  attempt.  On  the  contrary,  Christianity  has 
become  so  clogged  with  materialistic  misinter- 
pretations of  its  messages;  the  tent-making  and 
fishing  apostles  have  been  so  lost  in  cardinals 
and  bishops  living  in  palaces  with  the  revenues 
of  princes,  that  the  Christian  missionary  seems 
almost  the  one  fine  and  genuine  thing  left.  Just 
because  there  is  no  hope  of  visible  success  for 
him,  he  is  the  more  admirable  and  the  more 
Christian. 

It  is  true  that  the  East  moves  slowly,  but  even 
if  we  count  by  centuries,  the  Muhammadan  has 
much  the  best  of  it.  One  Oriental  race,  the 
Jews,  who  live  among  us,  who  have  been  perse- 
cuted in  every  country  of  the  world  save  America, 
have  not  been  converted  to  Christianity.  The 
Parsis  in  Bombay,  there  are  some  fifty  thousand 
of  them  out  of  a  total  population  of  some  eight 
hundred  thousand,  are  the  most  prominent  and 
the  most  powerful  people,  financially  and  polit- 
ically there,  and  come  most  in  contact  with  the 
British  politically  and  commercially;  but  they 
are  as  much  Zoroastrians  to-day  as  when  they 
fled  to  India  from  Persia.     The  Parsis  all  over 


54  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

India  still  retain  the  head-gear  which  was  forced 
upon  them  as  a  humiliation  in  the  early  days 
of  their  coming  to  India,  just  as  the  Chinese 
retain  the  pig-tail,  which  was  forced  upon  them 
as  a  mark  of  bondage,  by  their  conquerors  the 
Tartars,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  The 
Parsis,  rich  and  poor  alike,  though  like  the  Jews 
there  are  few  poor  amongst  them,  maintain  their 
religious  tenets  amongst  this  mass  of  Hindus 
and  Muhammadans,  and  despite  the  influence 
of  their  friends  the  Christian  British. 

The  towers  of  silence  are  one  of  the  sights  of 
Bombay.  The  Parsis  will  not  defile  the  three 
elements,  water,  fire,  and  earth,  with  the  re- 
mains of  their  dead.  They  refuse  to  dispose  of 
bodies  after  death  in  the  water,  in  the  ground, 
or  by  burning. 

It  happened  that  we  arrived  at  the  towers  of 
silence  on  Malabar  Hill  just  as  a  funeral  pro- 
cession was  marching  in.  Shortly  after  we  were 
escorted  to  the  top  by  a  courteous  attendant, 
whose  brother  was  the  chief  official.  Once  there 
he  explained  in  detail  the  procedure.  In  the 
midst  of  our  talk  another  procession  wended  its 
way  up  the  hill,  and  we  saw  at  close  quarters 
what  was  at  the  moment  being  described. 

The  corpse  is  borne  up  the  hill,  followed  by 
relatives  and  friends  in  white,  walking  two  by 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         55 

two,  and  hand  in  hand,  the  joining  of  hands  sym- 
bolizing the  perpetual  prayer  between  the  two 
thus  linked  together.  The  procession  halts,  and 
the  body  is  then  carried  to  a  raised  platform 
where  the  covering  is  taken  off.  A  swarm  of 
vultures  from  the  surrounding  trees  flop  heavily 
down,  and  soon  nothing  is  left  but  the  bones. 
The  bones  of  all  alike  are  then  thrown  into  a 
common  pit,  where  they  are  converted  to  ashes 
by  chemicals. 

The  mourners  sit  about  in  the  quiet  grove  pro- 
vided with  seats  and  flowers  and  fountains,  say- 
ing their  prayers,  while  the  filthy  birds  have  their 
orgies.  Tales  are  told  of  a  finger,  or  some  other 
portion  of  a  body,  being  dropped  upon  the  pas- 
sers-by in  the  street  below  by  the  gorged  and 
greedy  birds.  It  is  a  grewsome  spectacle  to 
those  unaccustomed  to  it,  but  the  Parsis  I  saw 
there  seemed  serene  and  peaceful  mourners,  quite 
undisturbed  by  the  quarrelling  birds  flapping 
their  wings  lazily  in  over-fed  contentment. 

Here  was  a  notable  example  indeed  of  differ- 
ence of  custom  and  its  results.  My  friend  the 
Parsi  could  hardly  refrain  from  the  expression 
of  disgust  at  our  method  of  delivering  our  dead 
to  the  earth  and  the  worms. 

Because  we  of  the  West  have  succeeded  be- 
yond measure  in  material  things,  as  compared 


56         THE    WEST   IN   TPIE   EAST 

with  the  East,  we  are  apt  to  assume  that  our 
methods  in  spiritual  things  are  for  that  reason 
superior.  As  I  have  said  elsewhere,  this  is 
faulty  reasoning.  I  doubt  if  we  have  any  right 
to  assert  ourselves  along  these  lines.  These 
Parsis  are  as  confident  in  their  faith,  their  creed, 
their  methods,  horrible  though  this  particular  rite 
seems  to  us,  as  are  we.  It  is  this  hands-ofi0  policy 
in  such  matters  on  the  part  of  the  British  which 
deserves  the  highest  encomiums  for  their  rule. 

It  is  a  pity  that  in  matters  of  education  they 
have  not  adopted  the  same  policy,  a  pity  too 
that  they  are  playing  into  the  hands  of  a  minute 
minority  both  in  India  and  in  Egypt  by  pushing 
to  the  front  the  theory  of  representative  govern- 
ment, which  the  vast  majority,  at  any  rate  in 
India,  do  not  understand,  cannot  reconcile  with 
their  traditions,  and  do  not  want.  I  should  be 
sorry  to  appear  bumptious  in  making  this  cate- 
gorical statement.  It  is  true  that  I  have  not 
talked  with  all  these  three  hundred  millions  of 
people,  nor  has  any  one  else,  but  I  venture  to 
say,  modestly,  that  I  have  talked  with  a  greater 
variety  than  most  travellers,  and  witli  a  far 
Greater  variety  than  most  officials,  whose  work 
precludes  the  possibility  of  much  travel,  and  the 
consensus  of  those  I  met  bears  me  out  in  this 
statement. 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         57 

It  is  not,  and  this  is  the  crux  of  the  confusion 
in  most  Western  minds,  that  they  are  not  ready 
for  representative  government,  and  for  Chris- 
tianity, but  that  they  have  no  wish  to  get  ready. 
They  do  not  want  them  at  all.  We  Westerners 
are  exaggeratedly  impressed  with  the  superi- 
ority of  our  institutions,  both  secular  and  eccle- 
siastical. We  believe  that  if  only  other  peoples 
understood  them  they  would  adopt  them.  We 
spend  millions,  and  many  lives,  in  making  them 
understand,  and  my  personal  opinion  is  that  the 
more  they  understand,  the  further  they  are  from 
adopting  our  institutions.  Our  points  of  view, 
our  traditions,  our  moral  and  mental  freezing 
and  boiling  points,  are  worlds  apart.  The  Ind- 
ians who  have  seen  most  of  England  and  the 
English  appreciate  them  least,  and  have  no  over- 
powering wish  to  copy  English  institutions,  or  to 
become  English.  The  Parsis  of  Bombay,  with 
no  caste  prejudices,  who  are  on  the  friendliest 
footing  with  the  English,  who  are  an  intelligent 
and  intellectually  superior  people,  are  as  much 
Zoroastrians  to-day  as  though  the  New  Testa- 
ment were  non-existent.  The  ideals  of  Chris- 
tianity do  not  appeal  to  the  great  mass  of  the 
Eastern  races,  or  not  to  be  too  didactic,  have  not 
appealed  to  them  thus  far  successfully. 

With  the  complaint  and  criticism  of  the  trav- 


58         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

eller  from  the  'West  that  everything  moves  too 
slowly  in  the  East,  from  missionary  enterprise  to 
the  means  of  locomotion,  I  have  no  sympathy. 
I  have  ridden  ponies,  elephants,  and  camels,  and 
driven  in  ox-carts  and  camel-carriages,  and  trav- 
elled nearly  fifty-five  thousand  miles  during  the 
last  year,  in  trains  and  ships,  and  I  find  them  all 
too  rapid.  Even  the  eight  miles  an  hour  on 
General  Kuroki's  old  military  railway  through 
Manchuria  was  too  fast.  There  is  so  much  to 
see  on  every  hand  that  even  an  ox-cart  may  go 
too  fast.  When  I  think  that  this  whole  volume 
contains  about  two  words  for  every  mile  I  have 
travelled,  I  realize  that  I  am  right  in  saying  that 
one  goes  too  fast,  rather  than  too  slow,  in  the 
East. 

The  Strand,  Broadway,  and  even  the  boule- 
vards of  Paris,  with  the  grotesque  eccentricities 
of  the  male  attire,  and  the  present-day  unbifur- 
cated  trouser  gowns  of  the  women,  are  tame,  and 
brown,  and  dull,  compared  with  the  kaleido- 
scope of  moving  color  in  the  streets  of  Bombay. 

At  the  races  one  day  I  turned  my  back  on  the 
horses  and  counted  fifty-eight  different  kinds  of 
head-gear  amongst  the  men  in  the  grandstand, 
and  no  doubt  there  were  others  I  did  not  see. 
The  Parsi,  with  his  lacquered  cow's  hoof,  the 
Arab,  the  Persian,  the  Hindu,  the   Muhamma- 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         59 

dan,  from  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  were 
there,  and  how  many  more  I  know  not,  and 
when  it  is  remembered  that  the  Maharaja  of 
Gwalior's  head-gear  is  as  different  from  that  of 
his  neighbor  at  Indore  as  is  the  cowboy's  som- 
brero from  the  tile  of  a  Beau  Brummel,  and 
that  these  differences  exist  all  over  the  East,  it 
is  easy  to  realize  that  the  streets  of  Bombay,  to  a 
new-comer,  seem  to  be  a  waving,  moving  mass 
of  form  and  color. 

The  British  in  India  in  spite  of  the  universal 
dislike  of  ostentation  amongst  the  best  of  them, 
either  here  or  at  home,  have  been  obliged  to 
assume,  officially  at  least,  an  air  of  state  and  cer- 
emony. The  crimson  and  gold  liveries  of  the 
Viceroy,  and  of  the  Governors  of  Bombay  and 
Madras;  the  splendid  body-guard  of  mounted 
Sikhs,  well  horsed,  proud  in  bearing,  all  of  them 
over  six  feet  in  height,  with  their  turbans  and 
lances;  the  crimson-lined  state  carriages,  with 
two  men  in  scarlet  and  gold  on  the  box,  and  two 
standing  on  the  foot-board  behind,  and  always 
splendidly  horsed,  all  this  makes  for  the  dignity 
and  splendor  that  the  Asiatic  demands  of  his 
ruler.  It  may  be  absurd  to  the  American,  but 
there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  a  Viceroy  in  a 
cloth  cap,  on  a  bicycle,  would  ruin  India  in  a 
month.     We  have  prejudices  the  Oriental  thinks 


60  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

silly;  they  have  prejudices  that  we  had  best  in 
charity  and  for  safety's  sake  let  alone. 

The  administration  of  India  in  England  is  in 
the  hands  of  a  Secretary  of  State  for  India,  as- 
sisted by  a  council  of  not  less  than  ten  mem- 
bers appointed  for  ten  years  by  the  Secretary  of 
State. 

The  executive  authority  in  India  itself  is 
vested  in  the  Governor-General  in  Council. 
The  Governor-General,  or,  as  lie  is  more  gen- 
erally called,  the  Viceroy,  is  appointed  by  the 
Crown,  and  holds  office  for  five  years;  this  term 
is  sometimes  extended.  The  salary  of  the  Vice- 
roy is  250,800  rupees  a  year.  The  rupee  is  now 
worth  one  shilling  and  fourpence,  or  roughly 
thirty-four  cents;  the  salary  amounts  therefore 
to  about  $84,000  a  year;  but  I  should  be  sorry 
to  undertake  the  job  and  to  pay  my  expenses 
out  of  that  sum. 

The  Council  of  the  Viceroy  consists  of  six- 
ordinary  members  besides  the  Commander-in- 
chief  of  the  army,  and  they  are  appointed  by  the 
Crown  and  hold  office  for  five  years.  This 
Council  is  enlarged  into  a  legislative  council  by 
the  addition  of  sixteen  other  members  appointed 
by  the  Viceroy  under  certain  restrictions. 

Further,  India  is  divided  into  nine  provinces: 
Bombay,     Madras.     Bengal,     Eastern     Bengal, 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         61 

United  Provinces,  The  Punjab,  Central  Prov- 
inces, North  West  Frontier  Provinces,  and 
Burma.  The  Governors  of  Bombay  and  Ma- 
dras are  the  most  important  officials  after  the 
Viceroy,  and  are  appointed  by  the  Crown,  and 
each  carries  a  salary  of  $40,000  a  year.  The 
Governors  of  Bombay  and  Madras  have  an 
executive  council  of  two  members  of  the  Ind- 
ian Civil  Service  appointed  by  the  Crown.  The 
Lieutenant-Governors  of  Bengal,  Eastern  Ben- 
gal, United  Provinces,  the  Punjab,  and  Bur- 
ma are  appointed  by  the  Viceroy  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  Crown;  the  Chief  Commissioners 
of  the  Central  Provinces  and  the  Agent  to  the 
Governor-General  who  governs  the  North  West 
Frontier  Provinces  are  appointed  by  the  Viceroy 
in  Council.  Of  these  divisions  I  visited  seven, 
and  in  each  I  was  impressed  by  the  enormous 
amount  of  work  being  done,  by  the  conscientious, 
often  I  thought  too  conscientious,  way  in  which 
it  was  done,  and  by  the  dignity  and  fearlessness 
of  the  men  who  were  doing  it.  If  it  were  not 
for  the  too  frecpient  interferences  from  the  India 
Office,  and  the  criticism  from  ignorant  politi- 
cians, who  shamelessly  play  India  off  for  votes 
at  home,  it  would  be  the  most  ideally  managed, 
as  it  is  the  most  successfully  administered,  de- 
pendency in  the  world. 


62         THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

It  is  curious  to  note  that  an  agnostic  even  in 
office  is  apt  to  be  more  sentimental  in  his  deal- 
ings with  men  than  the  believer.  As  an  avowed 
heretic  he  may  wish  to  prove  that  he  is  even 
more  merciful  than  the  orthodox;  or  he  may 
salve  his  conscience  by  assuming  an  exaggerated 
love  for  humanity  as  his  love  of  God  dwindles. 
To  worship  the  God  of  the  multitude  must  be  a 
hard  thing  for  the  intelligent  man,  either  in  the 
West  or  in  the  East;  but  to  turn  from  that  to 
the  flattery  and  adulation  of  the  multitude  itself 
is  to  proclaim  oneself  to  all  intelligent  men,  no 
matter  what  rewards  and  prizes  are  gained  there- 
by, as  a  scoffer  among  scoffers,  as  scornful  in 
the  seats  of  the  scorners.  Conscience  is  so  piti- 
less, that  even  to  be  a  prince  in  an  ochlocracy 
can  hardly  recompense  the  intellectual  traitor; 
and  surely  a  trained  mind,  laughing  in  its  sleeve, 
will  find  a  peculiarly  painful  punishment  await- 
ing it  somewhere. 

The  misfortune  of  a  dangerous  illness  brought 
us  the  good  fortune  to  spend  some  two  weeks 
as  the  guest  of  the  Governor  of  Bombay.  Here 
we  saw  housekeeping,  as  I  saw  it  again  later  as 
the  guest  of  the  Viceroy  at  Calcutta,  on  the  mag- 
nificent and  dignified  scale  made  necessary  by 
the  climate,  the  social  demands,  the  high  posi- 
tion of  the  host,  and  his  unceasing  and  unending 


THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         63 

procession  of  guests.  Very  few  of  them  are  of 
his  own  choosing  or  inviting,  few  of  them  indeed 
his  personal  friends,  but  Bombay  is  the  door  to 
India,  and  England  has  many  friends  all  over 
the  world,  and  for  reasons  of  state,  or  courtesy, 
or  of  frank  hospitality,  Government  House 
Bombay  receives  them  all,  some  to  stay  a  night 
or  two,  and  all  to  lunch  or  to  dine.  Dinners  of 
a  dozen,  or  of  twenty,  or  of  seventy,  night  after 
night,  and  the  dinner  of  seventy  as  well  and  as 
noiselessly  served  as  the  tete-a-tete  dinner  in  our 
own  sitting-room.  At  the  head  of  this  establish- 
ment the  Governor  of  Bombay,  with  a  besetting 
sin  of  toiling  when  he  should  be  at  play,  at  exer- 
cise, or  in  bed. 

The  steward,  or  manager  of  an  establishment 
as  well  conducted  as  this  must  be  a  housewifeic 
jewel  of  the  Koh-i-noor  variety.  But  that  is 
behind  the  scenes.  I  can  only  speak  of  the  re- 
sults. 

A  man  who  has  a  province  of  75,000  square 
miles  and  a  population  of  over  15,000,000  to 
govern,  including  a  city  the  size  of  Bombay, 
must  have  his  hands  full,  and  can  spare  little 
time  for  his  quests  and  their  entertainment. 

I  had  heard  of  the  institution  called  an  aide- 
de-camp  before,  and  I  have  met  them  in  other 
parts  of  the  world;   but  just  as  there  are  peaches 


64  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

outside  of  Jersey,  strawberries  elsewhere  than  in 
Maryland,  clam-bakes  elsewhere  than  in  Fair 
Haven,  Massachusetts,  soft-shell  crabs,  oysters, 
terrapin,  canvas-back  ducks  elsewhere  than  in 
America,  but  none  quite  so  good,  so  if  you  would 
know  the  fine  flower  of  aide-de-campship  you 
must  needs  go  to  India. 

A  man  with  as  many  strings  to  his  bow  as  a 
governor  of  one  of  these  great  provinces  must 
have  many  servants,  capable,  willing,  and  effi- 
cient, or  the  business  would  soon  be  in  a  tangle. 
These  men  must  not  only  be  capable,  willing 
and  efficient,  they  must  be  loyal,  and  if  in  ad- 
dition they  like  their  chief,  you  have  a  corps  of 
assistants  approaching  perfection.  There  is  the 
Military  Secretary,  the  Private  Secretary,  the 
Physician,  and  others,  each  with  his  duties. 
But  besides  their  specific  duties  they  are  the  hosts 
by  proxy  of  their  chief,  and  everywhere  and  at 
all  times  they  are  there  to  save  him  trouble  and 
to  make  his  work  easy. 

Every  day  in  your  dressing-room  before  din- 
ner you  find  a  type-written  list  of  the  guests  you 
are  to  meet  that  night,  and  the  name  of  the  lady 
assigned  to  you  to  take  in  to  dinner.  Austrian 
and  Polish  nobles,  Russian  and  French  princes, 
German  diplomats,  members  of  Parliament,  offi- 
cials, British  and  Indian,  Royal  Highnesses,  all 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         65 

must  be  properly  placed,  and  all  must  know  who 
their  neighbors  are,  and  as  a  result  what  subjects 
of  conversation  may  cause  friction  and  are  to  be 
avoided.  When  all  are  assembled  in  the  draw- 
ing-room, the  aide  on  duty  for  that  day  appears 
with  the  Governor,  whom  he  announces:  His 
Excellency!  That  gentleman  makes  the  round 
of  the  room,  shaking  hands  with  each,  offers 
his  arm  to  the  lady  entitled  to  that  honor,  and 
we  go  in  to  dinner  where  a  score  or  more  of 
turbaned  servants,  in  crimson  and  gold  liveries 
and  barefooted,  serve  the  meal. 

It  is  noticeable  that  the  other  Europeans  are 
impressed  by  the  stately  and  dignified  way  things 
are  done  by  the  British  officials  in  India.  The 
Governor  is  easily  king,  no  matter  who  is  there, 
and  during  my  stay  he  entertained  all  sorts,  in- 
cluding royalty  and  high  diplomacy,  renowned 
travellers,  sportsmen,  journalists,  and  statesmen. 
One  gets  an  impression  of  the  sturdy  self-con- 
trol, of  the  patient  mental  power,  which  are  the 
driving  force  behind  the  handful  of  Englishmen 
who  hold  this  country.  They  have  it  in  their 
blood,  the  best  of  these  people,  and  these  highly 
placed  Englishmen  almost  without  exception  — 
I  only  met  one  exception,  and  the  harm  he 
does,  although  negatively,  makes  one  gasp  to 
think  what  would  happen  were  there  more   like 


66         THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

him  —  take  the  throne  with  an  air  of  authority 
and  a  lack  of  self-consciousness,  as  of  men  sitting 
down  for  a  chat  with  a  friend. 

In  these  democratic  days  much  ceremony  and 
formality,  a  semblance  of  pomp,  makes  the  ob- 
server uneasy  very  often  lest  something,  so  to 
speak,  should  come  unstarched,  or  go  wrong, 
lest  the  procession  should  be  marred  by  a  sense 
of  unreality,  and  tempt  one  to  titter.  Not  so 
here.  Even  after  the  novelty  wears  off,  one  is 
not  impressed  by  the  artificiality  so  much  as 
more  and  more  impressed  by  a  growing  feeling 
that  this  is  not  the  simulacrum,  but  the  reality 
of  power.  But  it  takes  a  big  man  to  carry  it 
off,  England,  by  one  of  her  blunders,  still  has  a 
knot  of  them  here  in  India. 

I  have  always  thought  that  if  I  wrere  not 
myself,  or  as  Mr.  Choate  gallantly  and  wittily 
phrased  it,  could  not  be  my  wife's  next  husband, 
I  should  like  above  all  things  to  have  been  the 
secretary  to  a  great  man,  Cromwell,  Hampden, 
Washington,  Lincoln,  Bismarck,  and  had  a  hand 
in  the  chosen  doings  of  the  picked  giants  of 
earth. 

It  must  be  some  such  feeling  as  this  which 
stirs  in  the  breast  of  the  ideal  aide-de-camp. 
The  aides  of  the  Viceroy,  of  the  Governor  of 
Bombav,  and  of  the  Governor  of  Madras  who 


THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         67 

in  distinction  from  other  officials  in  India  re- 
ceive their  commissions  from  the  Crown,  wear 
their  aiguillettes  of  gold  over  the  right  shoulder, 
as  representatives  of  royalty;  other  A.  D.  C.'s 
wear  them  over  the  left  shoulder.  A  witty  gen- 
tleman eating  honey  in  the  country  turned  from 
the  dish  and  remarked  meditatively:  "If  I  lived 
in  the  country  I  should  certainly  keep  a  bee!" 
If  I  lived  in  officialdom  I  would  make  any  sac- 
rifice to  keep  an  aide-de-camp! 

An  aide-de-camp  is  a  person  whose  business 
it  is  to  be  agreeable.  His  task  is  one  requiring 
unceasing  vigilance,  good  health,  good  looks,  a 
kindly  disposition,  and  not  only  manners,  but 
what  is  the  finer  flower  of  manners,  manner. 
His  duties  are  so  multifarious,  his  accomplish- 
ments necessarily  so  varied,  that  it  seems  at 
first  glance  a  preposterous  joke  to  propose  to 
any  one  mortal  that  he  should  perform  them, 
combine  them,  conceal  them  deftly,  and  not  die 
of  megalomania. 

He  begins  his  day,  let  us  say,  at  Government 
House,  by  taking  a  guest  to  ride  at  7  a.  m.  —  it  is 
too  hot  to  ride  at  any  other  hour.  He  cares  no 
more  for  that  particular  guest  than  for  the  grand- 
sire  of  the  horse  he  is  riding,  but  he  is  a  very 
clever  and  a  very  observant  guest  if  he  discovers 
it.     As  the  clock  strikes  seven  he  appears,  smil- 


68         THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

ing,  shaven,  clean,  with  a  "I  hope  I  have  not 
kept  you  waiting!"  He  is  full  of  such  phrases 
as  that  by  the  way.  Indeed  he  is  an  anthology 
of  colorless  and  comforting  phrases,  not  quite 
flattering,  not  quite  humble,  but  partaking  of 
both,  which  steep  the  unsuspecting  in  an  aroma 
of  superiority  and  security.  He  has  listened  to 
your  banalities  about  horses  and  horseflesh,  in 
the  smoking-room  the  night  before,  with  a  cer- 
tain worshipful  awe  in  his  eyes,  and  you  now 
find  that  he  rides  as  though  he  were  in  a  cradle, 
and  you  perhaps  as  though  you  were  on  a  ship's 
deck.  He  modestly  defers  to  you  as  to  whether 
we  trot,  or  walk,  or  canter,  and  he  is  ready  to 
go  on  or  stop,  as  best  pleases  you.  He  has  a 
thousand  things  to  do  that  day,  and  you  nothing, 
but  he  is  positively  reckless  as  to  time  if  only  you 
are  happy.  If  you  will  only  waste  his  time, 
nothing  apparently  will  give  him  greater  pleas- 
ure. He  leaves  you  at  the  door  of  your  bungalow 
on  your  return  with  thanks  for  your  company, 
and  hope  in  his  eyes  and  on  his  tongue,  that 
you  will  favor  him  with  your  company  again. 
You  make  what  you  consider  a  remarkably 
quick  change  and  arrive  at  the  breakfast-room. 
Apparently  he  has  been  there  for  hours.  All  in 
white,  booted  and  spurred,  with  aiguillettes  over 
his  shoulder,  ribbons    on    his    breast,  for  he  is 


THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         69 

on  duty  to-day,  no  heat,  no  wilted  collar,  no 
single  hair  in  disarray,  he  awaits  you,  and  even 
his  smile  is  cool  and  inviting.  If  there  are  many 
guests  at  breakfast  or  at  luncheon  he  gently 
insinuates  you  into  the  room,  but  by  his  manner 
alone  he  transforms  you  into  feeling  like  a  whole 
procession,  and  you  swell  with  satisfaction  as  he 
hands  you  to  the  best  place  vacant.  He  takes 
his  place,  with  an  expression,  conveyed  wholly  by 
his  corporeal  attitude,  as  though  to  say:  "As  for 
me,  what  matters  it  where  I  sit!"  He  succeeds 
by  some  curious  personal  magnetism,  born  I 
suppose  of  long  practice,  in  giving  you  the  im- 
pression that  you  are  riding  upon  a  very  tall 
elephant,  magnificently  caparisoned,  while  he  is 
standing  in  the  street  admiring  you. 

After  he  has  seen  that  you  have  your  cigar  or 
cigarette,  and  asked  solicitously  if  you  have  seen 
the  last  Reuter  telegrams  and  the  newspaper,  he 
leaves  you,  but  he  leaves  you  in  a  delicious  at- 
mosphere not  of  mere  comfort,  but  of  comfort 
that  you  begin  to  feel  you  have  deserved  by  some 
effort  of  your  own.  There  is  a  marked  difference 
between  common  or  garden  comfort  and  A.  D.  C. 
comfort.  The  latter  is  lighted  and  scented  with 
a  certain  subtle  something  that  makes  you  feel 
that  your  state  of  languorous  ease  has  been  won 
by  you  after  long  and  arduous  toil;   while  as  a 


70         THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

matter  of  scientific  fact,  it  is  only  the  A.  D.  C. 
wand  which  has  played  upon  your  egotism,  and 
made  it  seem  for  the  nonce  noble. 

If  you  wish  to  do  an  errand  in  the  town  before 
luncheon,  he  will  either  accompany  you  himself, 
or  provide  you  with  a  companion.  If  he  goes 
himself  he  instals  you  in  the  right-hand  corner 
of  the  carriage  or  motor,  in  the  place  of  honor, 
and  you  sail  away,  soldiers  and  policemen  salut- 
ing, and  others  salaaming  as  you  pass.  He  does 
not  say  it,  but  his  air  implies  that  these  marks 
of  respect  are  due  to  your  imposing  personal- 
ity, and  not  to  the  royal  liveries. 

If  a  member  of  your  party  is  ill,  he  never  for- 
gets to  send  her  flowers,  to  inquire  for  her  health, 
and  to  suggest  other  comforts. 

He  has  done  an  hour's  work  before  the  morn- 
ing ride,  and  despite  the  air  of  idleness  and  the 
apparent  contempt  for  time,  he  has  done  two 
hours'  more  work  before  the  drive. 

This  almost  feminine  regard  for  your  com- 
fort, and  the  sight  of  him  modestly  curled  up  on 
a  sofa  at  tea-time,  like  a  stretching  house  cat, 
may  lead  you  astray.  Take  him  on  at  billiards, 
at  racquets,  at  real  tennis  or  lawn  tennis,  at  polo 
or  cricket  or  a  day's  shooting,  or  go  through  a 
day's  hard  ride  in  camp  or  at  manoeuvres  with 
him,  and  you  find  that  he  plays  all  the  games 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         71 

you  know  and  many  more,  and  he  beats  you  at 
all  of  them  easily  and  apologetically.  Among 
this  knot  of  embroidered  and  decorative  young 
gentlemen  you  may  find  a  distinguished  per- 
former upon  the  piano-forte,  who  will  play  you 
his  own  compositions;  another  who  publishes 
fugitive  poems;  another  who  could  easily  make 
his  living  as  a  caricaturist;  but  none  of  these 
accomplishments  is  foisted  upon  you,  rather  are 
they  dragged  forth,  or  discovered  by  accident. 
None  of  them  will  speak  of  himself,  or  his  do- 
ings, experiences,  or  successes,  and  one  and  all 
abhor  lime-light  upon  themselves  or  their  deeds. 
What  an  education  a  little  of  their  companion- 
ship would  be  for  many  of  my  countrymen, 
who  after  half  an  hour's  acquaintance  seem  to 
fill  the  atmosphere  with  exclamation  points,  and 
repetitions  of  the  ninth  letter  of  the  alphabet. 

On  all  official  occasions,  after  dinner,  or  at 
dances,  the  A.  D.  C.'s  attentions  to  the  forlorn, 
the  scraggy,  the  three-cornered,  the  convex- 
backed,  the  concave-chested,  the  self-conscious, 
the  awkward,  the  acidulous  of  the  opposite  sex, 
would  put  the  most  fanatical  Salvation  Army 
captain  to  shame. 

I  have  grown  to  look  upon  A.  D.  Cship  at  its 
best,  as  one  of  the  healing  professions.  It  min- 
isters to  the  social  soul  diseased.     It  deals  with 


72          THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

the  more  hidden  maladies  of  vanity,  self-con- 
sciousness, social  awkwardness,  non-appreciated 
virtues,  hypothetical  prowesses,  and  soothes 
them  unobtrusively,  gently,  and  successfully. 
Chatterton,  and  Byron,  and  Poe  might  all  have 
been  saved  by  the  ministrations  of  an  accom- 
plished A.  D. C. 

As  for  his  relations  with  his  chief,  he  sur- 
rounds him  with  a  purring  adulation  which 
soothes  irritation,  and  lays  the  dust  of  the  small 
attritions  and  futilities  of  the  daily  task.  He 
gives  spiritual  subcutaneous  injections  of  con- 
fidence  and  courage;  waves  aside  the  phantoms 
of  discouragement;  lights  up  the  dark  places  of 
dull  duties ;  and  helps  to  fulfil  the  deeds  in  hours 
of  insight  willed,  which  must  be  done,  like  most 
severe  tasks,  in  hours  of  gloom. 

If  he  really  likes  and  respects  his  chief,  his 
voice  and  mien  are  a  veritable  psean  and  halle- 
lujah of  praise,  when  he  appears  before  the 
guests  and  announces:  His  Excellency!  You 
are  at  once  prejudiced  in  the  great  man's  favor, 
prone  to  believe  that  he  is  indeed  Excellent. 

There  is  nothing  mawkish  about  this  loyalty, 
nothing  effeminate.  It  is  like  the  tenderness 
with  which  an  engineer  oils  his  great  ship-pro- 
pelling machinery,  or  the  gentleness  and  care  of 
a  sportsman  for  his  guns. 


THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         73 

In  a  climate  where  the  greatest  discomforts 
come  from  the  heat,  and  the  entomological  off- 
spring of  the  heat,  the  houses  are  built  for  cool- 
ness and  for  shade.  At  Government  House 
Bombay,  there  is  a  large  central  bungalow  con- 
taining the  drawing-rooms,  dining-room,  billiard- 
room,  ballroom,  smoking-room,  the  entertain- 
ing-rooms in  short,  and  surrounding  it  are  the 
bungalows  containing  the  living  apartments  of 
the  Governor,  his  staff,  and  his  guests.  We 
were  royally  housed  in  a  bungalow  overlooking 
the  bay,  with  reception-hall,  sitting-rooms,  bath- 
rooms, and  bedrooms,  and  with  separate  en- 
trances and  outer  halls.  The  service  is  at  first 
uncanny,  so  noiseless  are  the  barefooted  attend- 
ants. You  wash  your  hands  in  your  dressing- 
room,  and  almost  before  you  are  out  of  the  room 
a  silent  brown  man  has  slipped  in  to  change  the 
water. 

Servants  are  of  course  cheap  as  measured  by 
our  standards,  though  by  no  means  as  cheap  as 
they  were  twenty-five  years  ago;  but  they  are 
also  so  bound,  partly  by  caste  rules,  partly  by 
lethargy,  partly  by  centuries  of  habit,  that  it  re- 
quires many  of  them  to  keep  the  household  ma- 
chine going,  even  when  it  is  of  modest  propor- 
tions. In  the  case  of  the  Governor  of  a  great 
province  or  more  particularly  in  the  case  of  the 


74         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

Viceroy,  the  number  required  is  legion.  No 
one  of  them  will  undertake  another's  task,  and 
the  social  and  religious  differences  between 
them  are  so  great  that  there  are  no  illustrations 
from  American  life  that  will  serve  to  mark  them. 
Between  the  low-caste  sweeper  of  the  garden 
walks  and  the  Sikh  soldier  on  guard  at  the  front 
door,  for  example,  there  is  a  social  difference  not 
of  degrees  but  of  latitudes.  It  is  criminal  to 
think  of  associating  together. 

We  must  not  forget  that  we  are  among  people 
here  in  India  who  though  starving  will  throw 
away  the  meal  with  contempt  upon  which  even 
the  shadow  of  a  low-caste  man  has  fallen.  We 
should  remember  too  that  these  peculiarities  of 
caste  are  not  uncommon  even  among  ourselves. 
The  writer  of  Genesis  recalls  that  the  custom 
existed  in  Egypt  "because  the  Egyptians  might 
not  eat  bread  with  the  Hebrews;  for  that  is  an 
abomination  unto  the  Egyptians."  When  Joseph 
entertained  his  brethren  in  the  house  of  Pharaoh 
the  Egyptians  ate  apart,  the  Hebrews  ate  apart, 
and  Joseph  ate  apart,  much  as  the  Maharana 
of  Udaipur  would  do  to-day  did  he  entertain 
strangers  and  inferiors.  I  know  more  than  one 
continental  Catholic  who  has  never  to  his  knowl- 
edge sat  at  table  with  a  Jew;  and  we  all  of  us 
eat,   and   drink,   and    are    friendly   with   people 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         75 

whom  we  do  not  ask  to  break  bread  with  us 
at  our  own  tables.  These  Indians  have  their 
caste  prejudices,  so  have  we,  and  when  analyzed 
the  differences  are  of  degree  rather  than  funda- 
mental, and  so  likewise  are  the  eccentricities  of 
housekeeping  in  the  East  or  the  West;  there  are 
difficulties  to  contend  with  on  both  sides  of  the 
world. 

Bells  and  mechanical  appliances  are  not  nec- 
essary, for  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night  you 
clap  your  hands,  and  there  glides  noiselessly  into 
your  presence  a  brown  phantom  to  do  your  bid- 
ding. All  the  work  of  every  kind  is  done  by  men, 
except  the  sweeping  of  the  leaves  by  one  or  two 
women  in  the  garden.  They  all  seem,  if  one  may 
judge  from  appearances,  not  only  contented  but 
proud.  Good  behavior  means  fixity  of  tenure, 
and  ultimately  a  pension.  Tipping  fairly,  when 
there  are  so  many,  is  impossible.  The  visitor 
finds  a  notice  in  his  apartments  asking  him  not 
to  fee  the  servants,  but  calling  attention  to  a 
box,  into  which  he  may  put  a  contribution 
if  he  wishes.  This  contribution  is  added  to 
the  Pension  Fund.  The  same  justice,  and 
honesty,  and  impartiality  which  hold  all  India, 
hold  even  more  effectively  here,  because  in  the 
case  of  servants  they  come  into  closer  contact  with 
their  masters,  and  in  many  cases  like  them  as 


76         THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

well  as  respect  them.  John  Nicholson  was  not 
only  a  hero  among  his  white  fellows  but  a  hero 
too,  to  his  soldiers  and  servants.  His  great 
height,  his  flowing  beard,  his  dignity  of  bearing, 
and  audacious  courage  so  delighted  the  Sikhs 
that  a  sect  of  them  called  themselves  by  his 
name,  and  established  him  as  their  Guru,  or 
priest. 

Among  other  letters,  I  had  a  letter  to  a  dis- 
tinguished Hindu,  who  has  won  high  rank  in  the 
judiciary  of  India.  I  spent  a  long  day  in  the 
courts  with  him,  and  on  one  occasion  I  sat 
through  a  scene  which  I  shall  never  forget.  The 
buildings  used  by  the  court  in  Bombay  are  larger 
and  finer  than  those  in  New  York,  and  the  judges 
better  paid  than  even  our  judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States.  The  case  was  one 
of  appeal  from  a  decision  of  the  lower  court  con- 
demning two  Hindus  to  death  for  murder.  It 
was  a  disgusting  story,  and  most  of  the  evidence 
Was  circumstantial,  except  that  of  a  lad  of  six- 
teen, a  decadent,  who  claimed  that  he  had  been 
forced  by  the  others  to  take  part  in  the  crime. 
There  sat  a  Hindu  judge,  and  beside  him  an 
English  colleague;  the  case  was  argued  for  the 
appeal  by  an  English  barrister.  Many  hours, 
much  money,  much  investigation  and  sifting  of 
evidence  had  gone  into  this  dull  matter  of  the 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         77 

guilt  or  innocence  of  these  three  Hindus  of  the 
very  lowest  caste.  The  British  machine  was 
working  as  carefully,  as  minutely,  as  though  great 
personages,  or  important  matters  of  state  were 
at  stake.  It  was  an  object-lesson  of  the  slow, 
ponderous  English  way  of  being  just.  It  was  a 
sledge-hammer  to  crack  an  egg,  but  it  was  justice 
for  those  cow-herds,  who  possibly  earned  two  or 
three  cents  a  day,  and  justice  as  nice,  and  care- 
ful, and  impartial  as  for  a  prince.     In  the  old 

davs  their  ruler  would  have  had  their  heads  off, 

1/ 

or  their  brains  and  bellies  crushed  to  a  jelly  be- 
neath an  elephant's  feet  and  knees,  or  sent  them 
about  their  business  in  five  minutes,  and  nor  the 
victims,  nor  their  friends,  nor  any  one  else  would 
have  thought  anything  more  about  it. 

In  a  country  where  lying  and  deceiving  are 
looked  upon  as  an  intellectual  employment  as 
worthy  as  any  other;  in  a  country  where  a  man 
will  murder  his  own  child  and  bury  it  in  his  neigh- 
bor's garden  to  fasten  suspicion  upon  him,  it  is 
easy  to  realize  how  difficult  is  justice,  and  how 
experience  alone  can  weigh  evidence  and  get 
the  truth  from  witnesses.  It  is  sciolism  worse 
confounded  to  write  letters  and  pamphlets  from 
cosv  chambers  in  London  or  New  York  on  the 
subject  of  justice  in  India,  the  tyranny  of  the 
police,  the  haughty  English  official,  and  kindred 


78         THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

criticisms.  I  have  visited  courts  and  prisons,  I 
have  sat  in  the  highest  court,  and  also  in  front 
of  the  deputy-commissioner's  tent  pitched  on  the 
plains  of  the  Punjab,  on  a  hot  day,  and  thus  seen 
justice  meted  out  to  the  high  and  low,  and  to  all 
conditions  of  men  and  women,  and  now  that  T 
am  far  awTay  from  it  all,  I  marvel  even  more  than 
I  did  then  at  the  patience,  forbearance,  kindli- 
ness, and  impartiality  that  I  saw. 

My  distinguished  Hindu  friend  was  of  the 
Brahman  class,  who  had  been  educated  in  Eng- 
land and  thereby,  by  crossing  the  black  water, 
outcasted.  He  belonged  to  the  intellectuals  of 
his  creed,  and  told  me  he  was  what  we  should  call 
a  Unitarian.  He  praised  the  virtues  of  the  Hin- 
dus, said  they  were  peaceable,  gentle,  mild,  but 
also  suspicious,  envious,  and  jealous,  and  easily 
excited  by  playing  upon  their  religious  fears, 
when  they  lost  all  sense  of  the  justice  and  honesty 
of  their  rulers,  or  of  anybody  else,  and  became 
cruel.  The  Hindus,  he  said,  have  as  a  rule  but 
one  wife,  taking  another  only  in  case  the  first  one 
bears  no  children,  or,  among  the  lower  classes, 
that  there  may  be  more  people  to  work  the  land, 
and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  their  religion 
does  not  forbid  polygamy. 

He  maintained,  as  did  every  Indian  of  the 
scores  I  talked  with,  that  caste  is  the  curse  of 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         79 

the  country,  keeping  people  apart,  setting  them 
against  one  another,  and  that  so  long  as  caste 
exists  there  is  no  hope  of  self-government. 

He  thought  the  British  did  not  see  enough  of 
the  people,  were  socially  exclusive,  and  thereby 
barred  from  understanding  the  people  they  lived 
among.  I  said  that  all  Englishmen  made  the 
same  remark,  that  the  Indians  are  inscrutable, 
mysterious.  He  denied  this,  and  said  that  they 
were  quite  understandable,  and  would  talk  freely 
and  frankly,  but  that  they  were  not  allowed  to  be 
on  such  terms  with  the  English  as  permitted  free- 
dom and  frankness  of  intercourse,  and  that  there- 
fore they  were  dubbed  inscrutable.  He  said  the 
feeling  between  Hindus  and  Muhammadans  was 
as  strong,  and  in  some  places  as  bitter,  as  ever. 

He  thought  some  protection  would  be  good  for 
India,  for  of  course  with  free-trade,  India  was  at 
the  mercy  of  Lancashire. 

He  was  in  favor  of  as  much  participation  in 
the  government  by  natives  as  was  possible,  and 
held  that  education  was  making  progress  even 
among  the  women.  He  showed  the  same  feeling, 
though  very  guardedly  expressed,  that  other  in- 
telligent Indians  show  wherever  one  meets  them, 
that  much  of  the  distrust  and  dread  of  the  Ind- 
ian for  the  English  are  due  in  great  part  to  the 
unsympathetic  attitude   of  the  majority  of  the 


80         THE   WEST  IN   THE   EAST 

English,  and  claimed  that  confidence  and  sympa- 
thy would  be  repaid  by  loyalty  and  frankness. 

We  discussed  the  curious  contradictoriness  of 
the  English,  who  insist  upon  the  unearned  in- 
crement theory  as  applicable  to  land  in  India, 
though  they  fight  it  at  home;  and  who  support 
the  theory  of  native  princes  in  India,  with  their 
patriarchal  influence  and  methods  of  govern- 
ment, while  denouncing  dukes  and  great  land- 
lords at  home.  We  agreed  upon  one  thing,  that 
the  subtilties  of  British  compromise  were  be- 
yond us. 

I  quote  this  gentleman,  as  I  shall  quote  others, 
not  because  I  agree  or  disagree  with  all  their 
views,  but  that  my  readers  may  grind  each  his 
own  axe.  As  for  me,  I  beg  to  emphasize  the 
fact  that  I  have  no  axe  to  grind  other  than  to 
call  the  attention  of  my  countrymen  to  problems 
and  situations  that  they  are  marching  toward, 
and  that  rapidly. 

At  a  dinner  given  for  me  by  the  Chief-Justice, 
we  dined  at  a  new  club  where  both  Indians  and 
British  meet.  Indeed,  it  was  formed  for  that  pur- 
pose, and  certain  already  hard-worked  English- 
men whom  I  met  make  it  a  point  to  go  there. 
At  the  dinner  in  question  only  men  were  present, 
and  there  were  as  many  Indians  present  as  Eu- 
ropeans,  and    it    seemed   to  me  that   problems 


THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         81 

of  government  and  politics  were  discussed  as 
freely  as  they  would  have  been  in  New  York  or 
in  London. 

But  when  one  leaves  this  atmosphere  of  the 
high-placed,  to  spend  many  hours  in  the  part 
of  the  town  inhabited  by  the  Indians  themselves, 
the  practical  situation  seems  to  swamp  the  the- 
ory completely.  What  sympathy,  what  kind- 
liness, what  understanding  of  their  needs  or  of 
their  defects  can  permeate  this  mass  ?  Even 
my  Hindu  friend,  when  pressed  for  an  opinion, 
admitted  that  he  saw  no  solution  except  British 
domination  for  centuries  to  come.  Just  what 
your  eyes  see,  just  what  your  ears  hear,  make 
you  almost  contemptuous  of  the  most  intelligent 
man's  opinion  who  has  not  actually  been  in  In- 
dia. These  streets  swarming  with  people ;  these 
shops,  which  are  merely  large-sized  goods  boxes 
with  one  end  taken  off,  in  which  are  huddled 
merchants  and  their  families  and  their  wares,  in 
a  cubic  space  perhaps  twice  that  occupied  by  a 
deer-hound  when  travelling  in  his  huge  basket 
to  a  show;  the  variety  of  costumes,  head-gear, 
and  physiognomy,  I  was  told  that  forty  different 
dialects  are  spoken  in  the  bazaars  of  Bombay, 
distinctions  of  class  apparent  even  to  my  untu- 
tored eyes,  from  the  man  in  a  loin-cloth  to 
some  petty  raja  in  a  gilded  coach,  with  servants 


82         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

swarming  over  it  and  around  it,  or  dainty  Parsi 
women  taking  their  airing  in  well-turned-out 
carriages,  with  footmen  clearing  the  way  for 
them;  beggars  covered  with  dust  and  ashes; 
Arabs  and  students,  what  a  mixture  it  is! 

Nor  democracy,  nor  any  other  form  of  govern- 
ment, has  done  away  with  social  differences,  for 
the  form  of  government  is  yet  to  be  even  dreamt 
of  that  can  endow  men  with  equal  patience,  equal 
industry,  equal  good  judgment,  and  until  that 
time  comes,  society  will  be  as  little  level  as  the 
troughs  and  crests  of  the  ocean.  Even  in  the 
West,  where  religion  and  politics  have  assumed 
the  livery  of  Equality,  little  has  been  done;  but 
in  the  East  religion  and  politics  for  thousands  of 
years  have  insisted  that  justice  demands  inequal- 
ity, and  from  Quetta  to  Calcutta,  and  from  Ma- 
dras to  the  Khaibar  Pass,  there  is  no  sign  that 
the  old  ways  are  passing. 

A  journalist  whom  I  met  in  Bombay,  who, 
though  he  was  not  an  anarchist,  was  nonethe- 
less voluble  in  his  criticisms  of  the  British  meth- 
ods of  rule,  was  discussing  the  recent  visit  of  Mr. 
Keir  Hardie  to  India,  and  I  remarked  that  he 
was  a  curious  leader  for  a  Brahman  to  follow. 
"We  do  not  follow  him,"  he  replied,  "we  are 
only  using  him  as  we  should  use  anybody  else 
who  will  follow  us!     The  men  he  influences."  he 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         83 

continued,  "are  of  little  use  to  us,  but  they  are  a 
nuisance  to  the  British." 

There  are  over  a  thousand  newspapers  pub- 
lished in  the  vernacular  in  India  in  over  twenty- 
two  dialects  or  languages.  In  the  large  cities 
like  Bombay,  and  to  some  extent  in  the  outlying 
districts,  they  have  a  certain  influence,  not  al- 
ways, I  fear,  for  good. 

But  if  the  East  is  buried  deep  in  its  own  su- 
perstitions, we  are  obsessed  by  ours.  Education 
and  teaching  are  two  of  ours.  The  misty  talk 
about  teaching  people  to  respect  themselves  is  a 
very  loose  phrase.  To  teach  Lincoln  to  respect 
himself  was  to  increase  his  respect  for  patience, 
for  humility,  for  good-humor;  to  teach  John 
Nicholson  to  respect  himself  was  to  increase  his 
respect  for  truth,  courage,  and  duty;  on  the 
other  hand,  to  teach  a  forger  to  respect  himself 
is  to  make  his  next  forgery  more  daring;  to  teach 
a  thief  to  respect  himself  is  to  make  his  next 
loot  larger;  to  teach  certain  firebrand  politicians 
to  respect  themselves,  either  in  India  or  in  Eng- 
land, is  to  increase  their  respect  for  jaunty  om- 
niscience, for  second-hand  scholarship,  and  for 
the  sly  sedition  of  the  bomb,  the  pistol,  and  the 
vernacular  press. 

To  teach  a  man  to  read,  or  to  write,  or  to 
count  does  not  teach  him  to  think,  or  to  know. 


84         THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

We  tried  teaching  our  Indians ;  England  teaches 
in  India  —  under  the  aegis,  by  the  way,  of  the 
most  absurd  Macaulayan  and  antiquated  system, 
the  system  of  a  man  as  contemptuous  and  ig- 
norant of  Eastern  literature,  religions,  and  phi- 
losophy as  he  was  accomplished  as  a  maker  of 
historical  phrases  and  literary  antitheses — but  to 
little  avail,  for  the  reason  that  few  of  us  as  yet  re- 
alize the  limitations  of  education.  The  Indian 
senior  wrangler  is  no  more  morally  an  Englishman 
than  he  was  before  he  knew  the  English  alphabet. 
You  cannot  teach  character,  no  matter  how  much 
else  you  teach,  and  character  is  the  only  thing 
worth  while.  Men  are  only  of  the  same  class, 
of  the  same  moral  aristocracy,  when  their  blood 
boils  and  freezes  at  the  same  moral  temperature, 
and  in  all  the  world  there  is  no  text-book  on  that 
subject,  and  but  few  teachers. 

Much  of  the  confusion  in  this  matter  arises 
from  the  fact  that  we  confound  training  and  edu- 
cation. The  majority  of  men  who  go  through 
schools  and  universities  get  no  training  at  all, 
and  fail  and  are  forgotten;  the  men  who  do  get 
the  training  in  schools  and  universities  make  it 
appear  that  it  was  altogether  due  to  school  and 
college,  which  is  not  the  case  at  all.  It  was  train- 
ing that  produced  Washington,  Hamilton,  Lin- 
coln,   Grant,    Sheridan,    "Stonewall"    Jackson, 


THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         85 

and  Lee,  and  not  education  in  any  academic 
sense,  though  Hamilton,  Jackson,  and  Lee  were 
students.  It  is  not  the  learning  that  makes  the 
man,  but  the  man  who  uses  his  learning  as  a 
gymnasium  in  which  to  train  his  powers.  We 
go  on  crowding  men  into  state  and  philanthropy- 
supported  institutions  of  learning  as  though  they 
were  magical  receptacles  for  the  production  of 
trained  men.  Years  of  failure  have  taught  us 
nothing. 

I  agree  that  the  state  ought  to  supply  the  op- 
portunity for  elementary  study,  and  that  it  is 
wise  and  generous  charity  which  offers  oppor- 
tunity for  high  and  costly  experiment  and  in- 
vestigation, but  only  those  who  earn  their  way 
ought  to  have  the  path  beyond  made  easy. 
Luther,  and  Erasmus,  and  Bacon,  and  the  lesser 
breed  of  intellect,  will  blaze  their  own  paths 
through  the  forest  of  difficulties;  the  others 
should  not  be  pampered  into  intellectual  daw- 
dling, but  left,  and  even  forced  if  necessary,  to 
fell  the  forest  and  plough  the  plain. 

America  has  had  free  education  from  the  be- 
ginning, an  unequalled  test,  and  yet  the  men 
who  have  made  America  are  without  university 
degrees,  with  such  few  exceptions  that  the  aca- 
demically educated  are  lost  in  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  who  have  trained  themselves.    Even 


8(5  THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

those  who  have  academic  degrees  owe  their 
places  in  the  world  to  other  training  than  the 
training  received  from  books  and  professors. 

The  world  wonders  at  the  decadence  of  school- 
beridden  France,  where  the  boys  are  effemina- 
tized,  the  vouths  secularized,  and  the  men  ster- 
ilized,  morally  and  patriotically;  France  with 
its  police  without  power,  its  army  without  pa- 
triotism, and  its  people  without  influence;  dis- 
orderly at  home  and  cringing  abroad;  a  nation 
owing  its  autonomy  even,  to  the  fact  that  it  is  ser- 
viceable as  a  buffer-state.  When  I  write  "disor- 
derly at  home,"  it  is  not  the  off-hand  rhetoric 
of  the  hasty  writer.  Monsieur  Emile  Massard 
made  a  report  to  the  Paris  Municipal  Coun- 
cil on  the  subject  of  the  encumberment  of  the 
Paris  streets.  He  says  there  are  nearly  half  a 
million  vehicles  of  all  kinds  in  Paris  to-day,  with 
twenty  thousand  hand-carts  and  nine  thousand 
barrows.  In  1909,  sixty-five  thousand  eight  hun- 
dred and  seventy  accidents  were  caused  in  the 
Paris  streets  bv  eiffhtv-one  thousand  eight  hun- 
dred  and  sixty-eight  vehicles,  or  about  three  ac- 
cidents for  every  four  vehicles,  and  there  was  one 
summons  for  every  seventy-seven  motor  taxi- 
cabs.  I  am  unorthodox,  I  might  even  be  dubbed 
a  heretic  by  the  narrow,  but  I  am  bound  to  con- 
fess if  ever  a  nation  suffered  from  physical  and 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         87 

moral  dry-rot,  as  a  direct  result  of  secular  ed- 
ucation, it  is  France. 

America  and  Germany  have  been  saved  from 
this  by  faith  and  reverence.  In  France  reverence 
has  been  knocked  on  the  head  and  faith  smoth- 
ered in  ridicule,  and  she  has  produced  a  school- 
bred  hooligan,  in  Paris  at  any  rate,  whose  lack 
of  the  human  traits  of  decency,  honesty,  gentle- 
ness, and  manliness  are  unequalled  outside  of 
a  menagerie.  Heretic  I  may  be,  but  I  would 
rather  suffer  a  Mass  even,  than  mock  at  my 
mother  country. 

Education  without  moral  training  is  simply 
a  diabolical  misfortune.  But  the  fallacy  re- 
mains, and  with  it  a  terrible  waste  of  human 
material,  and  an  increase  of  that  uneasy  unhap- 
piness  which  is  the  curse  of  modern  society;  for 
men  and  women  are  naturally  discontented  who 
feel  dimly  that  they  are  developed  along  wrong 
lines,  and  yet  are  loath  to  admit  that  they  should 
exchange  the  black  coat  for  the  blouse,  the  pen 
for  the  plough,  and  the  anaemia  of  mediocre  men- 
tal accomplishment  for  the  health  of  rude  toil. 

There  is  a  multitude  of  failures  at  these  Ind- 
ian examinations.  It  takes  twenty-four  thousand 
candidates  for  matriculation  to  secure  eleven 
thousand  passes,  and  of  these  eleven  thousand 
only  one  thousand  nine  hundred  survive  to  take 


88         THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

the  B.  A.  degree.  At  Oxford,  for  example,  and 
as  a  means  of  comparison,  the  number  of  those 
who  fail  to  matriculate  is  negligible,  and  of  the 
nine  hundred  who  annually  matriculate,  about 
six  hundred  and  fifty  proceed  to  their  degree. 
In  the  long  run,  God  himself  readjusts  matters. 
Development  along  false  lines  ends  in  disgrace 
and  failure.  We  to-day  may  see  Turks  and 
Italians,  the  descendants  of  the  Mughals  and 
the  Caesars,  working  as  day-laborers  in  the  far-off 
West  of  the  Argentine  Republic,  and  five  hundred 
years  hence  a  Chinese  official  will  ponder  over 
the  fact  that  the  descendants  of  English  lords 
and  American  millionaires  are  tilling  his  fields. 
By  instinct  we  say  " Mother  Earth"  and  "Mother 
Nature,"  and  we  are  right;  all  the  others  are 
step-mothers,  or  mothers-in-law. 

It  is  curious  that  England,  which  has  won  so 
great  an  empire,  and  which  has  been  ruled  and 
served  by  an  uneducated  but  trained  aristocracy, 
should  of  all  nations  turn  to  books  and  profes- 
sors to  solve  its  Indian  problems.  In  the  House 
of  Commons,  July,  1910,  there  were  one  hundred 
and  eleven  Etonians,  the  great  majority  of  whom 
are  far  better  fitted  to  lead  a  squadron  of  cavalry, 
or  to  govern  a  foreign  province,  than  to  pass  an 
examination  in  competition  with  Frenchmen  or 
Germans  of  their  own  age.     I  hope  I  am  not  as- 


THE   GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         89 

suming  too  much  when  I  say  that  these  same 
Etonians  would  agree  with  me. 

India  needs  engineers,  agricultural  chemists, 
archaeologists,  mining  engineers,  architects,  stat- 
isticians, students  of  hygiene,  political  econ- 
omists, scientific  farmers,  but  how  many  such 
men  have  her  schools  and  colleges  produced  ? 
Practically  none.  All  this  work  is  done  by  Eu- 
ropeans, while  the  Indian  student  has  but  one 
aim :  to  become  an  employee  of  the  government, 
a  cog  in  the  wheel  of  bureaucracy,  with  a  little 
power  over  his  fellows,  and  a  pension  in  store  for 
him.  The  supply  of  these  students  is  exceeding 
the  demand,  and  those  left  over  are  like  badly 
cooked  food,  neither  good  as  a  fertilizer  nor  to 
eat;  they  are  spoiled  for  the  fields  and  too  feeble 
for  useful  mental  labor.  I  mean  no  insult.  I 
am  saying  of  the  East  what  I  have  first  said 
of  the  West.  England  has  transferred  the  West- 
ern fetich  of  secular  education  to  India,  with  the 
result  that  might  have  been  expected.  The 
Indian  seditionist  is  no  worse  than  the  Parisian 
hooligan,  and  both,  with  certain  differences, 
are  the  result  of  the  same  system. 

The  sun  is  blazing  down  on  the  garden  in 
which  lives  a  saint,  so-called,  whom  I  visited  one 
day  in  Bombay.  He  has  not  spoken  for  twenty- 
three  years,  and  his  neighbors  look  upon  him 


90         THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

with  awe.  He  permits  me  to  take  his  photo- 
graph, and  I  wonder  whether  it  is  for  peace  or  as 
a  penance  that  he  has  made  this  law  for  himself. 
We  question  him,  and  he  by  signs  tells  us  that  he 
is  quite  happy,  quite  indifferent  whether  he  lives 
or  dies,  and  quite  sure  that  all  is  for  the  best  in 
the  world,  if  one  only  takes  a  perspective  of,  say, 
a  thousand  years  or  so.  We  are  too  close  to 
things  to  know  much  about  them,  he  maintains, 
and  gets  as  far  away  as  he  can. 

Some  months  later,  I  visit  at  Davos  Platz  a 
man  who  for  nearly  thirty  years  has  been  study- 
ing drops  of  blood  under  a  microscope.  He  is 
getting  as  close  to  life  as  he  can,  but  admits  that 
he  knows  little  more  than  the  sage  in  his  hot  gar- 
den at  Bombay.  Both  the  Western  scientist  and 
the  Eastern  sage  smile  indulffentlv  at  the  fussi- 
ness  of  modern  life.  My  own  experience  of  men 
in  many  lands  has  taught  me  that  the  most  ac- 
tive are  the  least  valuable.  It  is  a  notable  sur- 
vival of  the  simian  in  man,  that  so  many  people 
think  that  constant  mental  and  physical  activity 
is  a  measure  of  value.  Busy  people  seldom  ac- 
complish anything.  The  statue,  the  poem,  the 
painting,  the  solution  of  the  economic,  financial, 
or  social  problem,  the  courage  and  steadfastness 
for  war  even,  are  all  born  in  seclusion  and  appear 
mysteriously  from  nowhere.     Cromwell,  Wash- 


THE    GATEWAY  TO   INDIA         91 

ington,  Lincoln,  Shakespeare,  Dante,  and  Cer- 
vantes all  appear  from  nowhere,  and  promptly 
take  command  of  the  busybodies.  What  a  crowd 
of  men  we  all  recall  who  were  so  busy  making 

themselves   remembered   that   thev   are  already 

«/  * 

forgotten!  It  is  said  that  some  ninety-five  per 
cent  of  business  men,  brokers,  and  bankers  fail. 
It  is  busyness  that  does  it.  WTe  must  give  the 
Eastern  philosophy  its  due.  We  are  none  of  us 
infallible,  not  even  the  most  modern  of  us,  and  I 
am  not  sure  that  the  proud  flesh  of  the  social 
sore  is  not  as  visible  in  the  Tweed  Ring,  in  the 
State-House  scandals  in  Pennsylvania,  in  the 
Sugar  scales  of  certain  millionaire  merchants,  in 
the  Poplar  Union  revelations  in  England,  or  in 
the  crowd  at  a  race-meeting  in  Paris,  as  any- 
where in  India  or  in  China. 

I  regret,  for  the  sake  of  my  Western  readers 
who  are  accustomed  to  the  proclamatory  cock- 
sureness  of  irritable  activity,  that  I  am  leaving 
Bombay  with  so  little  ability  to  provide  them 
with  any  essence  of  omniscience  of  my  own  man- 
ufacture. Having  no  claims  social,  political,  or 
financial  to  make  upon  my  fellow-countrymen,  I 
am  satisfied  to  serve  them  with  food  for  thought, 
rather  than  to  denounce  them  for  the  benefit  of 
their  enemies,  or  to  flatter  them  for  their  own 
undoing,  that  I  may  have  their  approval. 


Ill 

THE   GREAT   MUGHAL 

IT  is  much  like  trying  to  sop  up  the  Gan- 
ges with  a  bath  sponge,  to  attempt  to  give 
briefly,  and  yet  satisfactorily,  an  outline  of 
the  history  of  India.  If  I  were  telling  some  one 
else  how  to  thread  the  beads  of  such  an  historical 
sketch,  I  should  suggest  a  series  of  names,  names 
of  men  who  have  stood  as  corners  around  which 
the  current  of  events  has  swirled.  Buddha  500 
B.  C;  Asoka  257  B.  C;  Alexander  327  B.  C; 
Kanishka  40  A.  D.;  Timur  1398  A.  D.;  Babar 
1482-1530;  Akbar  1556-1605;  Shah  Jahan 
1628-1658;  Sivaji  1627-80;  Give  1751-1767; 
Hastings  1773-1784;  Ranjit  Singh  1780-1839; 
Dalhousie  1848-1856;    John  Nicholson  1857. 

There  are  many  omissions  here,  but  from  the 
time  when  India  rises  above  the  horizon  of  legit- 
imate history  down  to  that  Sir  Galahad  of  the 
Mutiny,  John  Nicholson,  who  was  shot  through 
the  heart  at  Delhi,  with  the  words:  "Forward, 
Fusiliers!  Officers  to  the  front!"  on  his  lips, 
one  can  grasp  the  main  features  by  a  study  of 

92 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  93 

these  biographies.  Those  last  words  of  Nichol- 
son, too,  leave  one  with  a  tingle  in  the  blood, 
and  a  fine  flavor  of  the  nobility  of  English  man- 
hood, which  was  never  more  wanted  in  India,  and 
in  England,  than  to-day.  Some  such  thing 
must  be  done,  however,  to  make  any  sketch  of 
British  rule,  or  of  present  conditions  in  India,  in 
the  least  comprehensible.  This  is  the  more  nec- 
essary when  one  hears,  not  only  from  those  who 
have  never  visited  India,  but  from  those  who 
have  been  there,  suggestions  and  discussions 
which  might  lead  one  to  believe  that  India  had 
always  been,  and  is  to-day,  a  national  entity  like 
France,  or  Germany,  or  Italy.  India  is  not  in 
the  least  like  Poland,  battling  for  national  ex- 
istence against  Russia  and  Germany;  not  in 
the  least  like  Italy  delivering  herself  from 
Austria. 

India  has  never  had  any  national  existence 
whatsoever.  India  is  even  now,  and  always  has 
been,  as  much  divided  into  nations,  states,  races, 
religions,  languages,  as  is  Europe,  or  Asia,  or 
Africa.  The  Sentimentalist,  who,  Meredith  tells 
us,  is  "a  perfectly  natural  growth  of  a  fat  soil. 
Wealthy  communities  must  engender  them," 
speaks,  and  writes  of  India,  as  though  it  had  been 
enslaved  by  the  British,  robbed  of  its  personality, 
starved  in  its  natural  national  growth,  shorn  of 


94         THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

its  liberties,  and  deprived  of  any  representation 
in  its  own  government. 

It  comes  as  a  surprise  therefore,  particularly 
to  the  American,  who  must  always  listen  sym- 
pathetically to  tales  of  tyranny,  particularly  if 
the  Briton  be  the  tyrant,  to  find  that  India  has 
never  had  a  national  personality,  nor  any  natural 
national  growth,  nor  anything  approaching  na- 
tional liberty,  nor  anything  even  dimly  shadow- 
ing forth  representative  institutions,  nor  has  she 
ever  dreamt  of  individual  liberty  as  we  know  it. 
Moreover,  out  of  the  three  hundred  millions  of 
the  population,  two  hundred  and  ninety  millions 
at  least  do  not  know  what  these  things  mean,  and 
do  not  care.  The  average  Indian  does  not  know 
that  America  has  been  discovered,  he  has  no 
idea  of  the  British  constitution,  or  of  the  cabi- 
net, he  does  not  know  that  there  is  a  British 
Secretarv  of  State  for  India.  Such  lovaltv  and 
knowledge  as  he  may  have,  centre  in  three 
Lords:  the  "Bara  Led"  or  Viceroy,  "  Chota  Lai" 
Provincial  Governor,  directly  over  him,  and  the 
"Jangi  Lai"  or  Commander-in-Chief  in  In- 
dia. Most  of  them,  however,  only  know  the  word 
Sarkar  or  the  government.  He  lacks  even  an 
equivalent  for  the  word  "vote"  in  his  language. 
He  recognizes  power,  position,  but  has  not  the 
vaguest  notion   of   "majorities."     A   change   of 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  95 

government  to  him  means  merely  a  change  of 
ruler,  another  man  in  place  of  the  old  one.  He 
knows  nothing  of  changes  of  principle,  of  eco- 
nomic differences,  of  party  cries.  Government 
to  him  has  always  meant,  and  means  to-day,  au- 
tocratic power  expressed  in  the  person  of  a  man. 
Only  a  tiny  minority  in  India  know  anything  of 
the  whys  and  wherefores  of  the  party  govern- 
ment in  England,  by  which  they  are  ruled. 

Unless  this  profound  ignorance  of  modern  po- 
litical methods  in  India  is  clearly  understood, 
and  kept  ever  in  the  back  of  the  brain  in  all  dis- 
cussions of  India  and  its  peoples,  misapprehen- 
sions and  misunderstandings  are  sure  to  follow. 

The  discussions,  experiments,  and  agitations 
at  the  present  time  in  regard  to  India,  are  lead- 
ing many  people,  both  in  England,  where  it 
is  their  duty  to  know  better,  and  all  over  the 
Western  world,  to  suppose  that  India  as  a  whole 
is  perhaps  almost  ready  for  representative  gov- 
ernment. Those  who  know  the  actual  condi- 
tions in  India  are  trying  to  disabuse  the  minds 
of  people  of  this  error,  but  strange  to  say  it  is 
difficult. 

Lord  Cromer  said  not  long  ago:  "If  they 
considered  the  immense  diversity  of  race,  re- 
ligion, and  languao-e  in  India,  and  also  that 
they    would    be    endeavoring    to    transplant    to 


96         THE   WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

India  a  plant  entirely  of  exotic  growth  and  plac- 
ing it  in  very  uncongenial  soil,  he  must  confess 
for  his  own  part  that  he  should  be  very  much 
surprised  if  the  legislative  experiment  did  suc- 
ceed." Other  experienced  governors  of  alien 
races  have  said  the  same. 

Lord  Curzon,  whose  opinion  upon  all  matters 
relating  either  to  the  Near  or  to  the  Far  East, 
must  be  received  with  respect,  says:  "  The  bulk 
of  the  peoples  of  India  want,  not  representative 
government,  but  good  government,  and  look 
to  the  British  officers  for  protection  from  the 
rapacious  money-lender  and  landlord,  from  the 
local  vakeel  (attorney),  and  all  the  other  sharks 
in  human  disguise  which  prey  upon  these  un- 
happy people." 

My  own  opinion  as  an  observer  from  the  out- 
side is,  that  the  peoples  of  India  are  no  more 
fit  for  representative  government  than  are  the 
inmates  of  a  menagerie,  and  that  were  the  Brit- 
ish to  leave  India  for  three  months,  India  would 
resemble  a  circus  tent  in  the  dark,  with  the  me- 
nagerie let  loose  inside.  There  would  be  no  safety 
except  for  the  cruel,  and  those  who  could  hide; 
and  there  would  be  no  security  because  there 
would  be  no  shame.  Tooth  and  nail  and  fang 
would  have  full  play  again,  and  that  callous 
cruelty,    which,    more    than    any    other   quality. 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  97 

stamps  the  Oriental  as  different  from  the  Oc- 
cidental, would  slaughter  the  strong,  enslave  the 
weak,  and  market  the  women  for  the  harem  or 
the  plough. 

The  very  men  who  study  chemistry  in  Lon- 
don, under  the  protection  of  British  law,  in  or- 
der to  learn  how  to  make  bombs,  to  hurl  at  an 
English  Viceroy  and  his  wife,  and  who  are  the 
most  vociferous  pleaders  for  representative  gov- 
ernment, would  be  the  first  to  hide,  and  the  first 
to  suffer;  aside  from  that  I  can  see  no  advantage 
in  opening  the  doors  of  the  cages  for  many  years 
to  come. 

One  of  their  stanchest  friends,  and  one  of 
their  most  brilliant  British  rulers,  and  a  scholar 
in  all  matters  pertaining  to  the  politics  of  the 
East,  writes  out  of  his  almost  unequalled  expe- 
rience as  traveller  and  ruler:  "in  character  a  gen- 
eral indifference  to  truth  and  respect  for  suc- 
cessful guile,  in  deportment,  dignity,  in  society 
the  rigid  maintenance  of  the  family  union,  in 
government  the  mute  acquiescence  of  the  gov- 
erned, in  administration  and  justice  the  open 
corruption  of  administrators  and  judges,  and  in 
every-day  life  a  statuesque  and  inexhaustible 
patience,  which  attaches  no  value  to  time,  and 
wages  unappeasable  warfare  against  hurry." 

It  is  idle  for  the  Westerner  to  attempt  to  form 


98         THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

political  or  social  opinions  about  these  people 
till  he  has  dwelt  among  them,  watched  them, 
studied  them.  Their  clumsy  inefficiency  physi- 
cally, their  depressed  mental  attitude,  their  shiv- 
ering timidity,  their  sullen  solemnity,  I  am  writ- 
ing, of  course,  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  are 
beyond  anything  the  Western  imagination  can 
picture.  It  is  not  only  idle  to  attempt  to  form 
opinions,  let  me  go  further,  and  say  that  I  hold 
it  cruel  to  the  people  themselves,  to  attempt  to 
irritate  them  into  the  belief  that  they  can,  for 
scores  of  years  to  come,  undertake  to  take  care 
of  themselves  politically,  socially,  or  morally. 
Every  man  of  humane  instincts  ought  to  be 
grateful  that  they  have  at  last  a  guardian  who  is 
honest,  just,  self-controlled,  and  lacking  some- 
what in  sentiment  and  imagination. 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  this  popu- 
lation are  entirely  dependent  upon  agriculture 
for  a  living,  and  Lord  Curzon  himself  has  esti- 
mated the  total  annual  income  of  the  Indian 
peasantry  at  a  trifle  over  five  dollars  a  head! 

India  has  an  area  of  more  than  one  and  a  half 
million  of  square  miles,  and  a  population  of, 
roughly,  three  hundred  millions.  Her  area  in 
square  miles  is  equal  to  the  total  area  of  Europe 
less  Russia,  and  her  population  is  greater  than 
that  of  all  Europe,  less  Russia.     The  great  di- 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  99 

versity  of  climate  in  India,  the  extremes  of  heat 
and  cold,  of  drought  and  wet,  of  fierce  winds  and 
calms,  and  the  consequent  plagues,  famines  and 
crop  failures,  are  the  result  of  a  peculiar  geo- 
graphical position.  If  one  could  stand  India  up 
on  end,  the  Himalaya  mountains,  with  one  peak, 
Mt.  Everest,  twenty-nine  thousand  feet  high, 
would  hang  over  the  pear-shaped  peninsula  like 
a  great,  broad-brimmed  hat.  If  you  look  at  a 
raised  map  of  India,  you  will  see  the  resemblance, 
for  the  Himalaya  mountains,  which  separate  In- 
dia on  the  north-east  from  the  great,  barren 
plateau  of  Tibet,  seem  to  hang  over  India  like  a 
huge,  curling  parapet.  It  looks  as  though  the 
bare  backbone  of  the  world  had  protruded  here. 
One  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  the  gulf  of 
Bengal,  where  the  Assam  range  of  hills  runs  out 
into  the  plain,  the  rain-clouds  bursting  against 
these,  give  a  rainfall  of  four  hundred  and  fifty 
inches!  While  to  the  west,  in  the  plains  of  Raj- 
putana,  there  is  scarcely  water  enough  for  a 
blade  of  grass. 

When  camping  out  with  the  troops  on  ma- 
noeuvres, north  of  Lucknow,  riding  in  the  middle 
of  the  day  was  oppressively  hot,  but  at  eleven 
o'clock  at  night  all  the  blankets  and  fur  coats 
one  could  pile  on,  were  not  too  much  for  com- 
fort. 


100       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

The  English  have  done  much  to  bring  about  a 
certain  regularity  of  water  supply.  Taking  the 
country  as  a  whole,  one  acre  in  seven  is  irrigated. 
Thirteen  million  acres  are  watered  by  wells,  fif- 
teen million  acres  are  watered  from  tanks,  or 
small  private  canals,  and  seventeen  million  acres 
are  watered  by  canals,  built  and  maintained  by 
the  government.  I  am  not  an  authority  on  such 
matters,  but  I  am  told  that  these  irrigation  works 
in  India  are  not  only  triumphs  of  engineering 
skill,  but  the  most  beneficent  works  of  the  kind 
in  the  world.  It  is  easy  to  believe  this,  when 
one  realizes  that  the  failure  of  the  year's  rain  in 
India  means  that  two-thirds  of  the  population 
are  out  of  employment  for  a  year,  with  of  course 
a  consequent  rise  in  the  prices  of  necessary 
commodities. 

There  are  now  in  India  over  thirty  thousand 
miles  of  railway,  more  miles  of  railway  than  has 
France,  three  times  more  than  Italy,  as  much 
as  Austro-Hungary,  and  only  six  thousand  miles 
less  than  Germany.  In  18.57  there  were  only 
three  hundred  miles  of  railway.  What  must 
have  been  the  helplessness  of  India  in  famine 
years,  when  there  were  no  means  of  transporta- 
tion! If  England  had  done  nothing  more,  one 
must  go  slow  in  criticising  her,  when  these  canals 
and  railways  are  remembered. 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  101 

She  alone  has  fought  grim  Nature  in  India 
with  the  resources  of  science,  with  the  result  of  a 
saving  of  millions  of  lives.  No  other  conqueror 
spent  his  time,  energy,  money,  and  the  lives  of 
his  own  people,  in  such  enterprises.  Nadir  Shah 
rode  off  with  millions.  Other  conquerors  did 
the  same.  England  has  poured  millions  into 
India,  and  the  malcontents  are  grumbling  be- 
cause she  exacts  in  interest  far  fewer  sovereigns 
than  she  has  saved  lives.  Human  beings  at  five 
dollars  a  head  seem  cheap  enough! 

When  we  recall  that  crowded  France  has  only 
a  population  of  under  two  hundred  to  the  square 
mile,  and  that  even  in  overcrowded  England 
wherever  the  density  of  the  population  is  over 
two  hundred  to  the  square  mile,  the  population 
ceases  to  be  rural  and  must  live  by  manufactures, 
mining,  or  city  industries;  what  is  the  picture 
presented  by  India,  where  many  millions  of 
peasants  are  struggling  to  live  off  half  an  acre 
apiece.  So  wholly  is  this  population  agricult- 
ural, their  one  interest  the  tilling  of  the  soil,  that 
less  than  one  fifteenth  of  them  live  in  towns  with 
more  than  twenty  thousand  inhabitants. 

India  is  a  continent,  and  not  in  any  sense 
a  nation.  Travel  from  Bombay,  let  us  say,  to 
Peshawar,  and  from  there  drive  into  the  Khai- 
bar  Pass,  and  as  you  travel  you  see  people  as 


102       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

different  from  one  another  as  though  you  trav- 
elled from  Seville  to  Moscow,  or  from  the  City 
of  Mexico  to  Vancouver,  and  yet  this  is  all 
India. 

The  error  lies  in  confusing  the  idea  of  India, 
in  talking  of,  or  discussing  India,  as  though  In- 
dia were  like  Spain  or  Germany,  like  Mexico  or 
Canada.  She  not  only  has  layer  after  layer  of 
races,  but  also  layer  after  layer  of  religions,  of 
forms  of  government,  of  customs  and  of  ideals, 
and  prejudices.  You  are  not  dealing  with  one 
nation,  nor  with  one  religion,  nor  with  one  ethical 
code,  nor  with  one  language,  nor  with  one  gen- 
eral trend  of  social  custom,  but  with  scores  and 
scores  of  them.  There  are  half  a  dozen  different 
languages,  and  over  five  hundred  different  dia- 
lects. 

Not  to  know  something  of  all  this,  and  some- 
thing of  India's  previous  history,  is  to  read  of 
India,  and  to  travel  in  India,  with  the  mind 
blindfolded. 

Social  as  well  as  all  other  phenomena  have  two 
aspects,  the  dynamic  and  the  static;  the  former 
dealing  with  the  forces  which  brought  the  phe- 
nomena into  existence,  the  latter  dealing  with 
them  as  they  exist.  A  sketch  of  the  history  of 
India  will  help  with  the  former,  and  travel  in 
India  itself  ought  to  tell  us  something  of  the  lat- 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  103 

ter.  But  either  alone  avails  little  to  understand 
the  problem. 

India  has  been  the  great  jousting-ground  of 
the  world.  Whoever  would  break  a  lance  during 
the  last  twenty-five  hundred  years  or  more,  was 
tempted  by  the  tales  of  fabulous  wealth,  of  con- 
cealed treasure,  of  rivers  whose  sands  ran  gold, 
to  arm  himself  and  set  out  for  India.  Greeks, 
Persians,  Turks,  Tartars,  Mongols,  Scythians, 
Afghans,  Arabs,  the  Dutch,  the  French,  the  Por- 
tuguese and  the  English,  and  odd  tribes  besides, 
have  sallied  into  India  at  one  time  or  another,  to 
conquer,  to  pillage,  or  to  slaughter.  Some  of 
these  left  traces  of  their  blood,  some  of  them 
their  buildings,  and  others  their  colonies.  Till 
the  British  came,  they  brought,  and  they  took 
away  everything,  except  peace. 

The  British,  whatever  may  be  said  of  their 
motives  for  coming,  or  of  their  methods  of  tak- 
ing and  keeping  territory,  were  the  first  conquer- 
ors who  brought  peace  and  administered  equal 
justice  to  all.  Both  justice  and  peace  are  so 
new  to  India,  that  their  very  novelty  is  the  foster- 
mother  of  many  of  the  problems  which  confront 
England  in  India  to-day.  Alexander  the  Great, 
Asoka,  Tamerlane  or  Timur  the  Lame,  Mah- 
mud  of  Ghanzi,  Babar,  Akbar  the  Great,  Nadir 
Shah,  and  many  more,  are  of  those  who  have 


104       THE    ^^EST   IN   THE   EAST 

tested  themselves  and  their  followers,  by  a  plunge 
into  India.  Some  of  the  greatest  names  in  Eng- 
lish history  won  their  first  distinction  in  India, 
and  Napoleon  would  have  followed  Alexander, 
and  landed  in  India  after  Egypt,  had  not  his 
plans  gone  awry.  As  soon  as  a  soldier  suc- 
ceeded in  consolidating  his  power,  anywhere 
from  China  on  the  East,  to  Persia  on  the  west,  of 
the  northern  frontier  of  India,  he  swooped  down 
upon  India,  penetrated  as  far  into  the  interior 
as  he  dared,  and  made  off  with  as  much  booty 
as  he  could  carry. 

After  the  Greeks  under  Alexander,  who  en- 
tered India  in  327  B.  C,  and  who,  by  the  way. 
left  traces  of  their  art  in  the  various  vases,  coins, 
caskets,  and  other  ornaments  found  since,  and 
also  in  the  fine  Greek  features  of  many  of  the 
images  of  Buddha,  came  a  people  from  Central 
Asia,  whom  the  historians,  for  want  of  a  better 
name,  call  Scythians.  They  are  said  to  have 
driven  out  the  Greek  dynasty  from  the  Bactrian 
Kingdom  on  the  northwest  of  the  Himalayas,  and 
at  about  the  beoinnino;  of  the  Christian  era  thev 
founded  a  strong  monarchy  in  Northern  India, 
and  just  beyond.  Their  most  famous  king  was 
named  Kanishka,  and  we  shall  hear  of  him  later 
on  as  an  enthusiastic  disciple  of  Buddha.  These 
Scythians  continued  to  swarm  across  the  Him- 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  105 

alayas,  and  into  Northern  India  for  several  cen- 
turies, meeting  and  defeating,  or  being  driven 
back  by  one  after  another  of  the  Indian  kings. 

As  early  as  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century, 
began  the  invasions  of  a  people  who  left  their 
mark  upon  India  as  no  other  people  have  done. 
Muhammad,  who  was  born  in  570  A.  D.,  left 
to  the  world  a  fiery  faith,  with  which  the  world 
is  not  done  yet.  The  Bombay  coast  was  near 
enough  to  tempt  these  religious  soldiers,  and  on 
one  pretext  or  another  they  began  their  inva- 
sions of  India,  which  were  to  result  finally  in  a 
series  of  Muhammadan  rulers  in  India,  such  as 
India  had  not  had  before,  nor  will  ever  have 
again. 

Mahmud  of  Ghanzi  invaded  India  no  less 
than  seventeen  times.  After  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury of  fighting  his  small  kingdom  of  Afghanis- 
tan was  increased  to  include  the  Punjab.  These 
Muhammadan  conquerors,  who  one  after  an- 
other down  to  the  time  of  Babar  1482-1530  A.  D., 
fought  their  way  into  more  and  more  territory 
in  India,  were  of  the  same  religion,  and  the 
same  fanatical  enthusiasm  as  those  who  had 
fought  their  way  through  Asia,  Africa,  Spain, 
and  into  southern  France,  and  whose  capital  at 
Bagdad  was  at  one  time  the  commercial,  artis- 
tic, scholarly,  and  political  centre  of  the  world. 


106       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Stopped  at  last  in  France,  the  fury  of  conquest 
expended  itself  upon  India.  Names,  dates,  de- 
tails of  their  gradual  occupation  of,  and  sover- 
eignty over,  almost  the  whole  of  India,  will  not 
be  necessary  to  the  readers  of  these  papers.  I 
have  not  the  slightest  intention  of  writing  more 
than  the  scantiest  outline  of  history,  merely  trust- 
ing thereby  to  give  a  setting  for  the  rough  picture 
which  I  am  painting.  But  of  six  of  these  Mu- 
hammadan  invaders,  Babar,  Hamayun,  Akbar, 
Jahangir,  Shah  Jahan,  and  Aurangzeb,  it  is 
necessary  to  know  something  to  understand  the 
India  of  to-day,  even  though  one  be  only  a  trav- 
eller looking  at  monuments,  and  nervously  trying 
to  keep  his  finger  on  the  right  page  of  his  guide- 
book as  he  goes  along. 

Their  influence,  their  monuments,  their  sys- 
tem of  land  tenure,  revenue,  and  taxation,  their 
customs  and  habits,  and  even  their  social  moral- 
ity, remain  visible  to-day.  Lucknow,  Delhi, 
Agra,  Benares,  Lahore,  Peshawar,  and  the  Kliai- 
bar  Pass,  are  still  all  alive  with  their  wealth, 
their  devotion,  and  their  daintiness  and  daring 
as  builders. 

Timur,  better  known  as  Tamerlane,  at  the 
head  of  a  united  body  of  Tartars,  came  down 
through  the  Afghan  passes,  about  1400  A.  I)., 
entered  Delhi,  massacred  the  inhabitants  for  five 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  107 

days,  held  a  feast  in  honor  of  his  victory,  and 
returned  again  to  Central  Asia.  Sixth  in  de- 
scent from  him  was  the  Mughal,  Babar,  who  in- 
vaded India  in  1526.  He  writes  in  that  remark- 
able Diary  of  his:  "Hindustan  is  a  country  that 
has  few  pleasures  to  recommend  it.  The  people 
are  not  handsome.  They  have  no  idea  of  the 
charms  of  friendly  society,  of  frankly  mixing  to- 
gether, or  of  familiar  intercourse.  They  have 
no  genius,  no  politeness  of  manner,  no  kindness 
or  fellow-feeling,  no  ingenuity  or  mechanical  in- 
vention in  planning  or  executing  their  handi- 
craft works,  no  skill  or  knowledge  in  design  or 
architecture,  they  have  no  good  horses,  no  good 
flesh,  no  grapes  or  musk  melons,  no  good  fruits, 
no  ice  or  cold  water,  no  good  food  or  bread  in 
their  bazaars,  no  baths  or  colleges,  no  candles,  no 
torches,  not  even  a  candlestick."  When  Babar 
arrived  he  found  India  fought  over  by  native 
Indian  rulers,  and  by  numerous  Muhammadan 
rulers,  fighting  each  for  his  own  land,  or  joining 
forces  here  and  there  in  an  effort  to  found  a  state 
which  should  insure  breathing  space. 

These  kingdoms  exhausted  themselves  in 
quarrels  amongst  themselves,  to  such  an  extent, 
that  when  the  Mughal  emperors  appeared  they 
found  them  an  easy  prey.  Changiz  Khan  and 
Timur    were    both    ancestors    of    Babar.     His 


108       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

grandfather  the  Khan  of  the  Mongols,  though 
seventy  years  old  at  the  time,  came  without 
thought  of  age  or  distance,  to  bear  his  congratu- 
lations on  the  news  of  his  birth.  The  grand- 
mother was  likewise  a  woman  of  spirit.  Her 
husband  was  defeated  in  battle  and  she  was 
handed  over  as  part  of  the  booty  to  one  of  the 
officers  of  the  conqueror.  She  raised  no  objec- 
tions, but  once  her  new  master  was  in  her  apart- 
ments, the  door  was  locked,  she  and  her  maids 
stabbed  him  to  death  and  flung  his  body  into 
the  street.  Then  to  the  conqueror  she  sent  the 
message:  "Contrary  to  law  you  gave  me  an- 
other man,  and  I  slew  him.  Come  and  slay  me 
if  you  choose!"  Babar  had  forebears  of  spirit. 
Babar  kept  a  diary.  He  lived  in  the  time  of 
Henry  VII  and  Michelangelo  and  Copernicus. 
He  tells  us  in  much  detail  the  story  of  his  life. 
Only  from  1519  till  1530  was  he  in  India.  His 
early  days  were  days  of  hardship,  adventure, 
war,  and  sport.  He  took  them  as  they  came. 
He  never  whined,  he  never  explained,  and  he 
loved  life  in  a  most  unoriental  way,  and  was  the 
most  romantic  figure  of  his  day.  He  was  more 
the  type  of  the  adventurous  sailors  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  day,  than  any  Oriental  we  know.  He 
was  a  great  sportsman,  a  bold  horseman  and 
swimmer,  and  of  abounding  vitality  and  good 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  109 

humor.  He  loved  life,  even  the  eating  and 
drinking  part  of  it,  and  as  is  always  the  case 
with  such  suitors,  life  loved  him.  From  Babar's 
coming  in  1526  to  the  death  of  Aurangzeb  in 
1706,  India  was  to  a  larger  extent  than  ever  be- 
fore, under  one  ruler.  It  should  be  added  that 
at  no  time  even  then  was  India  entirely  con- 
quered, or  completely  under  the  sway  of  one 
Government,  as  it  is  to-day  under  the  English. 

Babar  defeated  the  Delhi  sovereign,  entered 
Delhi,  received  the  allegiance  of  the  Muhamma- 
dans,  was  attacked  by  the  Rajputs,  defeated 
them  near  Agra,  and  when  he  died  his  power 
extended  as  far  south  as  lower  Bengal.  His  son 
Humayun,  who  succeeded  him,  was  obliged  to 
divide  his  inheritance  with  his  brother,  handing 
over  to  him  Kabul.  It  was  from  Afghanistan 
that  Babar  had  drawn  his  fighting  men,  and 
Humayun  deprived  of  this,  the  main  recruiting 
ground  of  his  army,  was  attacked  by  the  descend- 
ants of  those  earlier  Afghan  invaders,  who  hated 
the  new  Muhammadan  rulers  as  much  as  they 
hated  the  Hindus.  Finally,  after  years  of  fight- 
ing to  hold  his  place,  he  was  driven  out  of  India 
by  the  famous  Sher  Shah,  the  governor  of 
Bengal. 

In  1.5,56  the  son  of  Humayun,  then  only  four- 
teen years  old,  and  in  many  ways  the  greatest  of 


110       THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

all  the  Mughal  rulers,  and  the  real  founder  of  the 
Mughal  Empire  in  India,  defeated  the  army  of 
the  Sher  Shah  ruler,  and  his  father  Humayun  re- 
turned again  to  India,  but  only  to  reign  for  a 
few  months  at  Delhi,  and  to  die  in  1556. 

Akbar  succeeded  his  father,  and  reigned  for 
close  upon  fifty  years,  from  1556  until  1605,  his 
reign  corresponding  almost  exactly  to  that  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  1558-1603.  He  was  the  great- 
est ruler  India  has  ever  had.  He  welded  a  chaos 
of  nations,  tribes,  religions,  and  petty  chiefs  and 
kings,  into  an  empire.  His  great  finance  min- 
ister Raja  Todar  Mall,  who  was  a  Hindu,  made 
the  first  survey  and  the  first  regular  land  settle- 
ment of  India,  and  adjusted  the  taxation.  Ak- 
bar gave  the  Hindus  equal  place  and  power,  and 
played  off  the  Hindus  against  the  Mughal  chiefs. 
He  married  the  daughter  of  the  Maharaja  of 
Jaipur,  and  his  son  married  the  granddaughter 
of  the  Maharaja  of  Jodhpur.  His  careful  system 
of  police,  judges,  and  rulers  of  provinces  helped 
to  make  his  rule  both  just  and  effective.  He 
did  away  with  the  tax  on  non-Mussulmans,  and 
he  and  his  son  and  grandson  were  the  builders 
of  practically  all  the  monuments  which  remain 
to  make  India  famous  to-day. 

This  line  of  princes  are  as  well-known  in  In- 
dia as   are  the  names  of  Elizabeth,  Henry  the 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  111 

Eighth,  Charles  the  First,  and  Cromwell  in  Eng- 
land. They  introduced  Persian  poets  and  print- 
ers, and  men  of  letters  from  foreign  lands.  They 
were  the  Medici  of  India.  The  last  of  this  great 
line  of  Timur  died  in  Rangoon,  as  a  prisoner 
of  the  British,  in  1862.  Their  connection  with 
India  lasted,  therefore,  for  more  than  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years,  or  from  nearly  a  hundred 
years  before  America  was  discovered,  until  with- 
in two  years  of  the  close  of  the  war  of  secession. 
The  only  time  that  India  has  come  near  being 
India  was  under  their  rule. 

It  is  along  the  lines  laid  down  by  Akbar  that 
the  British  have  worked,  in  the  matter  of  land 
tenure  and  taxation.  The  total  revenue  of  Ak- 
bar was  estimated  at  forty-two  million  sterling, 
or  about  three  times  the  amount  demanded  at 
the  present  time  from  the  land.  He  built  the 
tomb  of  his  father  Humayun  near  Delhi,  the 
town  of  Fatehpur-Sikri,  near  Agra,  in  many 
ways  the  most  interesting  ruins  in  India,  the 
fort  at  Allahabad,  the  palace  at  Lahore,  and  the 
red  palace  in  the  fort  at  Agra. 

It  was  the  Europeans  who  visited  India  at 
this  time  who  brought  back  the  expression,  which 
still  endures  as  a  description  of  human  splen- 
dor: "The  Great  Mughal!"  Toward  the  end 
of  his  life,  his  tolerance  drifted  into  scepticism, 


112        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

and  he  promulgated  a  new  state  religion,  which 
was  supposed  to  combine  the  best  from  all  re- 
ligions, with  Akbar  as  its  prophet,  or  the  head  of 
the  church.  He  was  accused  finally  of  even  per- 
mitting worship  of  himself,  a  crime,  be  it  said, 
of  which  great  politicals  are  accused  to  this  day, 
and  we  all  know  with  how  little  reason !  Akbar 
died  in  1605,  and  is  buried  in  the  splendid  tomb 
at  Sikandra,  some  five  miles  from  Agra  canton- 
ment. 

It  was  during  his  reign  that  three  Englishmen 
arrived  with  a  letter  from  their  Queen,  Eliza- 
beth. They  were  John  Newbery,  Ralph  Fitch, 
and  William  Leedes.  John  Newbery  was  lost 
somewhere  on  his  travels,  Leedes,  who  was  a 
jeweller,  remained  as  court  stone-cutter,  and 
Fitch  returned  to  England.  It  was  through  his 
reports  of  the  opportunities  awaiting  the  trader 
in  India,  that  the  first  commercial  ventures  from 
England  were  started.  He  it  was  in  short  who 
gave  the  signal  for  the  formation  of  commercial 
companies  to  exploit  India,  with  the  result  that 
India  is  governed  by  England  to-day. 

Akbar  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Jahangir. 
who  reigned  from  1605  till  1627.  He  carried  on 
a  series  of  wars  in  southern  India,  and  lost  the 
province  of  Kandahar  to  the  Persians.  Jahan- 
gir turned  from  his  father's  new-fangled  faith, 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  113 

and  personally  conducted  ritual,  to  the  orthodox 
observances  of  Islam.  He  must  have  been  a  wag 
of  terrifying  prowess,  since  it  is  told  of  him  that 
after  a  night  of  drunken  revelry  with  some  of 
his  courtiers,  one  of  them  reminded  him  the  next 
morning  of  what  had  happened.  Jahangir  asked 
the  man  who  his  companions  had  been  in  such 
a  disgraceful  debauch,  then  called  them  before 
him  and  had  them  beaten  so  severely  that  one 
of  them  died.  He  himself  died  in  the  midst  of 
a  rebellion  against  him,  led  by  his  son  Shah 
Jahan.  Jahangir  built  the  tomb  of  Anar  Kali 
at  Lahore,  and  the  tomb  of  Itimad-ud-daulah 
at  Agra,  who  was  a  Persian  named  Ghiyas  Beg, 
Jahangir's  father-in-law,  and  the  grandfather  of 
the  wife  of  Shah  Jahan,  whose  tomb  is  the  most 
wonderful  in  the  world.  The  mightiest  factor 
for  good  in  Jahangir's  life  was  his  wife,  Nun 
Jahan.  He  loved  her  twenty  years  and  then 
killed  her  husband  to  get  her,  and,  what  is  per- 
haps more  astonishing  still,  he  never  regretted 
it.  In  1603  Sir  Thomas  Roe,  the  first  English 
ambassador  to  India,  presented  his  letters  to  Ja- 
hangir from  James  I. 

Shah  Jahan  was  emperor  of  Delhi  from  1628  till 
1658,  just  about  the  time  the  Pilgrims  and  Puri- 
tans were  making  their  first  settlements  in  Ameri- 
ca.     While    they    were    building    schools    and 


114        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

churches  of  logs  hewn  into  shape  with  the  axe;  at 
about  the  time  indeed  when  the  oldest  meeting- 
house in  America,  which  has  been  used  consecu- 
tively for  public  worship,  was  building,  now 
known  as  the  "Old  Meeting-House,"  in  Hingham, 
Massachusetts,  this  Indian  Emperor  was  plan- 
ning the  building  of  the  most  magnificent  capital 
in  the  world.  No  courtier  in  Delhi,  or  in  Agra, 
and  no  citizen  of  Hingham  at  that  time,  imagined 
that  the  simple  slate  grave-stones  in  the  cemetery 
at  Hingham  would  mark  the  beginnings  of  a 
more  lasting  state  than  the  jewelled  tombs  of 
Agra  and  Delhi. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  father's  reign,  Shah 
Jahan  was  a  refugee  and  a  rebel,  conspiring 
against  his  own  father.  After  coming  to  the 
throne  he  murdered  his  brother,  Shahriyar,  and 
all  the  other  members  of  the  house  of  Akbar 
who  might  become  rivals  to  the  throne.  Dur- 
ing the  whole  of  his  reign  his  armies  were  at 
work  defending,  attacking,  and  losing  or  winning 
territory.  He  is  said  to  have  been  just  to  his 
people,  blameless  in  his  habits,  a  good  financier, 
and  by  far  the  greatest  man  of  his  day  in  all  the 
East.  He  built  the  Great  Mosque  or  Jama 
Masjid,  at  Delhi,  the  Palace  —  what  is  now  the 
Fort  —  also  at  Delhi,  which  contains  the  Court 
of  Private  Audience  or  Dhvan-i-Khas,  and  the 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  115 

Pearl  Mosque  or  Moti-Masjid.  The  famous 
Peacock  Throne  in  his  Audience  Hall  in  the 
Fort  at  Delhi,  with  its  tail  shimmering  in  the 
natural  colors  of  rubies,  diamonds,  sapphires, 
and  emeralds,  was  valued  by  the  jeweller  Tav- 
ernier  at  thirty-five  million  dollars.  If  he  had 
done  nothing  else,  his  name  would  have  been  re- 
membered in  India,  but  he  did  more  than  this. 
He  stamped  the  whole  world  of  architectural 
beauty  with  his  private  seal  when  he  built  the 
Taj  Mahal. 

Elsewhere  one  may  read  of  the  vivid  incon- 
gruities of  India,  but  what  of  this :  I  have  just  been 
the  guest,  at  a  splendid  camp,  where  some  seven 
hundred  people  were  entertained  for  four  days 
by  one  of  the  most  enlightened  native  rulers  in 
India.  This  ruler  is  a  woman,  Her  Highness 
Sultan  Begum  of  Bhopal.  Here  in  India  one 
finds  a  woman  ruling  with  tact,  with  force,  and 
with  success.  Here  in  India  I  have  seen  women 
actually  catching  in  their  hands  the  dung  as  it 
fell  from  the  cattle,  pressing  it  into  cakes,  car- 
rying it  off  on  their  heads,  to  dry  it  at  home 
for  fuel.  Here  in  India  too  is  the  most  marvel- 
lous memorial  to  a  woman  ever  built  by  hu- 
man hands.  Woman  at  her  highest,  woman  at 
her  lowest,  woman  immortalized,  and  all  here  in 
India. 


116       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

The  Taj  Mahal  is  the  exquisite  mausoleum 
built  by  Shah  Jahan  as  a  tomb  for  his  favorite 
wife  Arjmand  Banu,  called  Mumtaz-i-Mahal,  or 
"  Light  of  the  Palace."  It  stands  on  a  platform 
of  marble,  twenty  feet  high,  and  three  hundred 
feet  square.  The  tomb  itself  measures  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-six  feet  on  each  side,  and  the 
dome  over  the  centre  is  two  hundred  feet  high. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  things  I  have  seen 
in  the  world.  I  saw  it  for  the  first  time  just  as 
the  sun  was  setting,  leaving  it  with  the  purple 
curtain  of  the  horizon  all  about  it.  It  looked  as 
though  a  Titan  had  taken  a  huge  piece  of  ivory 
satin,  embroidered  it,  encrusted  it  with  jewels, 
stiffened  it  into  shape,  and  set  it  in  the  sky.  It 
seemed  quite  as  though  it  might  fade,  or  float, 
away.  The  first  clod  of  dry  earth  that  falls  upon 
a  coffin  must  seem  like  the  weight  of  a  planet  to 
some  one,  but  here  are  tons  of  marble  and  not  an 
ounce  of  weight.  If  you  could  blow  bubbles  of 
mother-of-pearl  they  would  not  shine  more  softly, 
or  float  more  lightly,  than  the  minarets  and  domes 
of  this  tomb.  Here  is  a  tomb  that  might  float 
away  with  the  spirit  of  the  body  to  which  it  gives 
a  home.  It  looks  as  though  you  might  hold  it 
up  on  your  outstretched  hand. 

It  is  the  only  building  in  the  world  that  makes 
one  wish  to  pat  it,  smooth  it,  touch  it,  as  though 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  117 

it  had  the  soft  skin  of  a  woman.  It  is  not 
something  you  see;  you  feel  it,  hear  it,  taste  it. 
I  put  my  hand  against  the  marble.  It  was 
warm,  it  seemed  to  have  texture  and  quality,  as 
though  it  were  the  covering  of  something  alive. 
I  have  never  seen  any  other  building  that  re- 
sembled it,  or  reminded  me  of  it  —  and  only 
one  woman. 

Inside,  underneath  the  great  marble  dome,  are 
the  two  marble  tombs  of  Shah  Jahan  and  his 
wife,  and  there  the  marble  is  like  lace,  so  cun- 
ningly is  it  carved,  with  flowers  inlaid  in  color, 
the  colors  being  made  of  precious  stones,  agate, 
cornelian,  lapis-lazuli.  One  can  readily  believe 
that  it  cost  ten  millions  of  dollars  and  twenty-two 
years  of  labor  to  make  this  casket. 

No  other  woman  in  the  world  has  been  praised 
in  marble  and  jewels  as  is  this  woman,  and  no 
other  woman  ever  can  be.  There  have  been 
greater  men,  and  lovelier  women,  doubtless,  and 
countless  men  who  have  loved  as  much,  and 
many,  no  doubt,  who  have  loved  more,  but  every 
man  who  has  loved  a  woman  must  envy  this  man 
for  having  done  what  he  would  wish  to,  but  may 
not  do! 

Around  the  two  tombs  is  a  screen  of  marble. 
You  can  look  through  it,  as  you  can  look  through 
a  cobweb.     There  are  scrolls  and  flowers,  and 


118       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

the  petals  and  leaves  of  each  flower  are  of  col- 
ored precious  stones,  inlaid  in  the  marble. 

We  Occidentals  use  urns  and  crosses  and 
broken  columns.  This  man  put  a  diadem  of 
brilliants  on  the  brow  of  memory,  as  if  to  say: 
This  is  not  something  buried  or  broken  or  to 
be  forgotten,  but  rather  something  complete  and 
never  to  be  forgotten,  and  it  never  will  be!  He 
was  right.  When  a  man  has  really  loved  once, 
he  has  been  eaten  up  by  it.  After  that  it  does 
not  matter  how  often,  or  how  soon,  he  dies. 
"Home  is  not  a  hearth  but  a  woman." 

Poor  Shah  Jahan,  as  he  had  rebelled  against 
his  father  Jahangir,  so  he  in  his  turn  suffered 
from  the  intrigues  and  rebellion  of  his  family.  He 
fell  ill.  His  son  Aurangzeb  murdered  his  broth- 
ers, and  proclaimed  himself  emperor  in  16.58.  He 
imprisoned  his  father  and  kept  him  in  close  con- 
finement in  the  Fort  at  Agra  till  he  died  in  1666. 

I  am  sitting  now,  as  I  write,  where  Shah  Jahan 
used  to  sit  as  a  prisoner  in  his  own  palace.  I  can 
see  the  Taj  Mahal,  as  he  used  to  see  it  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago. 

As  he  looked  across  at  those  minarets  and  at 
that  dome,  he  probably  thought  his  life  a  fail- 
ure, and  yet  every  man  who  sits  where  I  am  sit- 
ting must  envy  him  such  a  success.  All  that  the 
world   of  his  generation  had   to  give  had   been 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  119 

poured  into  a  cup  and  lifted  to  his  lips  every  day, 
and  he  had  probably  envied  the  man  who  was 
genuinely  thirsty,  that  he  might  enjoy  it.  Now  he 
is  deserted  and  alone,  and  his  cup,  full  of  success 
and  adulation,  is  in  the  hands  of  his  rebellious 
son,  who  carries  the  key  of  his  prison-house  in  his 
girdle,  and  mocks  him.  All  he  has  left  is  his 
daily  vision  of  the  tomb  of  his  wife,  the  Taj  Ma- 
hal. One  can  pay  this  building  no  higher  hom- 
age than  to  say  that  one  envies  Shah  Jahan  even 
then ! 

There  are  other  buildings  in  Agra.  There  is 
the  great  Fort,  with  its  circuit  of  nearly  a  mile,  and 
its  huge  sandstone  walls  nearly  seventy  feet  high, 
built  by  Akbar.  Within  these  walls  is  a  mosque, 
also  built  by  Shah  Jahan,  called  the  Pearl 
Mosque,  the  Hall  of  Public  Audience,  the  Gem 
Mosque,  used  by  the  ladies  of  the  court,  the  Hall 
of  Private  Audience,  and  the  miniature  mosque, 
called  the  Mina  Masjid,  in  which  the  Emperor 
made  his  devotions,  and  the  splendid  sandstone 
palace,  and  so  on.   • 

He  must  have  revelled  in  building,  and  for- 
tunately there  were  eyes  that  dreamed  beauty, 
and  sure  hands  to  make  buildings  of  the  dreams 
to  do  his  bidding.  No  one  before,  and  no  one 
after,  till  the  British  took  possession,  was  more 
completely  master  of  India  than  Shah   Jahan. 


120       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

The  Mughal  Emperors  culminated  in  Shah  Ja- 
han,  and  their  pinnacle  is  the  Taj  Mahal. 

As  long  ago  as  1398  Timur,  or  Tamerlane,  as 
he  is  better  known  to  us,  poured  his  hordes  of 
followers  through  the  Afghan  passes  from  Tar- 
tary.  Shah  Jahan's  grandfather  Akbar,  was  the 
sixth  in  descent  from  this  barbarian  warrior. 
One  wonders  who  and  what  our  first  ances- 
tors could  have  been,  who  drifted  over  the  world 
from  Central  Asia,  and  whose  descendants  built 
the  Acropolis,  the  Forum,  the  cathedrals  and 
churches  of  Italy  and  France,  Germany,  and 
England,  and  the  Taj  Mahal  in  India.  At  any 
rate  one  is  proud  to  be  of  that  Aryan  stock. 

The  last  of  this  great  line  of  Mughal  emper- 
ors, who  really  held  India  together,  was  Aurang- 
zeb,  who  proclaimed  himself  emperor  while  his 
father  Shah  Jahan  was  still  living.  He  ruled 
from  1658  till  1707.  His  reign  began  in  rebellion 
against  his  father,  and  ended  in  the  rebellion  of 
his  own  sons  against  him.  He  devoted  practi- 
cally his  whole  forty-nine  years  as  a  ruler  to  the 
conquest  of  southern  India,  and  for  the  last  half 
of  the  time  he  was  in  the  field  himself  at  the  head 
of  a  huge,  and  what  proved  to  be  an  unwieldy, 
army. 

A  new  power  had  sprung  up  in  the  south, 
known  as  the  Maratha   Confederacv,  and  Au- 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  121 

rangzeb,  who  had  become  a  bitter  and  partisan 
Muhammadan,  lost  the  friendly  co-operation  of 
Hindu  generals  and  Hindu  viceroys,  who  had 
helped  to  consolidate  the  Mughal  power  under 
Akbar. 

The  religious  sect  of  the  Hindus,  the  Sikhs 
in  the  north,  the  Marathas  in  the  south,  and  the 
Rajputs  in  the  west,  now  hemmed  in,  and  grad- 
ually dismembered,  the  great  Mughal  Empire 
in  India.  As  we  shall  see  later,  it  was  from  the 
Marathas  and  the  Sikhs  and  not  from  the  Mug- 
hals,  that  the  British  took  control  of  India.  Au- 
rangzeb  by  his  stubborn  policy  put  India  again 
into  the  hands  of  bigoted  Hinduism  and  big- 
oted Islamism,  from  which  Akbar  had  wrenched 
it  clear. 

While  this  great  empire  was  falling  to  pieces 
in  the  hands  of  the  feeble  successors  of  these  six 
great  emperors,  other  enemies  appeared. 

The  Persian  king,  Nadir  Shah,  held  a  carni- 
val of  slaughter  and  debauchery  in  1739,  last- 
ing nearly  two  months,  in  and  around  Delhi,  and 
is  said  to  have  carried  away  with  him  booty,  in- 
cluding the  peacock  throne,  to  the  value  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars. 

The  Afghans,  time  and  time  again,  poured 
through  the  now  unprotected  passes,  and  burned, 
and   sacked,  and  slew.     The  whole  borderland 


122       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

between  northern  India  and  Afghanistan  was 
swept  bare  of  wealth  and  of  people,  and  lay  bar- 
ren for  years.  It  was  during  this  time  of  an- 
archy, and  internecine  fighting,  if  fighting  be- 
tween such  diversified  inhabitants  of  the  same 
country  may  be  described  as  internecine,  that 
the  British  began  patching  together  piece  by 
piece,  what  is  to-day  their  Indian  Empire.  While 
the  others  were  quarrelling  and  fighting  oyer  re- 
ligious, social,  political,  and  hereditary  shadows, 
the  British  bull-dog  walked  off  with  the  bone. 
He  was  not  permitted  to  enjoy  it  in  peace  for 
years.  The  last  war  with  the  Marathas  was  not 
ended  till  1818,  and  the  Sikhs  were  not  con- 
quered by  the  British  till  1849. 

That  eminent  and  satisfactory  historian  of  the 
Indian  peoples,  Sir  William  Wilson  Hunter, 
writes:  "Akbar  had  rendered  a  great  empire 
possible  in  India  by  conciliating  the  native  Hindu 
races.  He  thus  raised  up  a  powerful  third  party, 
consisting  of  the  native  military  peoples  of  In- 
dia, which  enabled  him  alike  to  prevent  new 
Muhammadan  invasions  from  Central  Asia,  and 
to  keep  in  subjection  his  own  Muhammadan 
governors  of  provinces.  Under  Aurangzeb  and 
his  miserable  successors,  this  wise  policy  of 
conciliation  was  given  up.  Accordingly,  new 
Muhammadan  hordes    soon   swept   down   from 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  123 

Afghanistan;  the  Muhammadan  Governors  of 
Indian  provinces  set  themselves  up  as  indepen- 
dent potentates;  and  the  warlike  Hindu  races, 
who  had  helped  Akbar  to  create  the  Mughal 
Empire,  became,  under  his  foolish  posterity  the 
chief  agents  of  its  ruin." 

When  Columbus  discovered  America,  he  was 
trying  to  find  a  sea-passage  to  India.  He  car- 
ried in  his  pocket  a  letter  from  his  sovereign  to 
the  Khan  of  Tartary! 

When  Vasco  da  Gama  sailed  around  Africa, 
and  discovered  the  sea  route  to  India  in  1498, 
he  turned  the  whole  current  of  power  and  com- 
merce. The  Arabs  had  made  Bagdad  the  centre 
of  trade  between  the  East  and  the  Mediterranean 
nations.  As  early  as  the  year  931  A.  D.,  exam- 
inations of  candidates  for  permission  to  practise 
medicine  were  held  at  Bagdad,  which  was 
already  then  a  centre  not  only  of  commerce, 
but  of  culture.  The  Crusaders  made  certain 
Italian  cities,  Amalfi,  Pisa,  Genoa,  Venice,  rich, 
because  it  was  through  them  that  these  multi- 
tudes poured  on  their  way  to  the  East.  They 
did  the  transporting  of  men  and  stores  and 
horses.  At  the  height  of  their  power  the  Tabula 
Amalfitana  were  the  sea  laws  for  the  whole  Medi- 
terranean. When  Pisa,  Amalfi,  and  finally  Genoa 
were  subjugated  by  their  rivals,  Venice  became 


124       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

the  world's  great  sea-power,  and  also  the  centre 
of  the  world's  commerce  and  the  world's  art  and 
culture.  Her  ships  covered  the  sea,  and  she 
numbered  her  sailors  in  tens  of  thousands.  Find- 
ing that  the  through  journey  was  too  long,  the 
Venetians  arranged  with  the  northern  towns  of 
Europe  to  make  one  town,  lying  between  Italy 
and  the  traders  of  the  north,  a  centre  or  store- 
house, where  exchange  of  goods  might  be  con- 
veniently effected.  They  agreed  to  make  Bruges 
that  centre,  and  thereafter  Bruges  in  the  north, 
and  Venice  in  the  south,  handled  the  trade  of 
the  world. 

Vasco  da  Gama's  discovery  came  like  a  magic 
wand  to  change  all  this.  It  was  cheaper  to  trade 
by  way  of  the  newly  discovered  sea -route,  and 
Lisbon,  lying  half-way  between  East  and  West, 
became  the  great  market  of  the  world,  and  by 
far  the  most  potent  Western  factor  in  the  East. 
There  followed  the  tremendous  war  between 
Spain,  which  had  conquered  Portugal  in  1580, 
and  those  great  trading  towns  of  the  north  then 
centred  in  Holland.  For  nearly  a  hundred 
years  the  war  raged  between  Spain  and  Holland, 
and  at  the  end  of  it,  or  the  beginning  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  the  Dutch  were  masters  of 
the  world.  New  York  was  Dutch,  Brazil  was 
Dutch,  India  was  Dutch,  and  the  Cape  of  Good 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  125 

Hope  was  Dutch,  and  of  course  the  Eastern  trade 
was  Dutch.  The  Thirty  Years'  War  and  the 
civil  war  in  England  only  made  them  stronger, 
till  one  wonders  why  the  Dutch  rather  than  the 
British  did  not  become  a  great  empire. 

But  a  "fat  soil,"  a  "wealthy  community," 
bred  a  race  of  what  would  now  be  called  "Lit- 
tle Hollanders."  No  one,  they  thought,  would 
dare  attack  the  world-power  which  had  swept 
Spain  off  the  seas.  No  doubt  there  were  poli- 
ticians to  tell  the  people  that  the  huge  navy  was 
an  incubus,  that  more  money  was  wanted  for  the 
poor,  where  so  many  were  rich,  and  that  the  era 
of  peace  had  come  at  last.  Certainly  that  psalm- 
singing,  devout  Protestant  across  the  North  Sea, 
Cromwell,  who  was  training  an  army  and  build- 
ing a  navy,  merely  of  course  to  protect  the  com- 
merce of  England,  was  the  last  man  to  be  sus- 
pected of  designs  upon  Holland.  Was  he  not 
continually  saying  that  his  army  and  his  navy 
were  merely  brought  into  existence  to  preserve 
peace!  When  all  was  ready,  and  the  Dutch  pol- 
iticians had  succeeded  in  rendering  Holland  fully 
unprepared  for  war,  this  man  of  prayer,  and 
psalm,  and  Bible,  struck  his  blow  in  1652,  and 
Holland  lost  her  empire,  lost  her  mastery  of  the 
sea,  lost  her  commercial  supremacy,  and  all  be- 
cause she  was  fat  and  rich. 


126       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Cromwell's  navigation  laws  were  what  are  now 
known,  and  reviled,  as  high  tariff  laws.  By 
Cromwell's  Navigation  Act  all  goods  of  every 
description,  wherever  grown  or  manufactured, 
were  to  be  imported  into  Great  Britain  only  in 
ships  belonging  to  British  subjects,  of  which  the 
master  and  a  majority  of  the  crew  were  British 
born;  and  all  goods  produced  in  Europe  must  be 
brought  into  Great  Britain  either  in  British  bot- 
toms, or  in  ships  belonging  to  that  country  in 
which  thev  were  actuallv  produced.  The  Dutch 
were  exporters  of  cheese,  but  had  been  carrying 
the  trade  of  the  world  in  their  ships! 

It  is  easy  to  see  against  whom  the  new  Navi- 
gation Act  was  aimed.  There  followed  an  enor- 
mous expansion  in  British  foreign  trade,  which 
has  never  ceased  to  grow  from  that  day  until 
within  the  last  few  years. 

When  a  man  arms  himself  with  the  Bible,  and 
clothes  himself  in  the  shining  armor  of  scripture, 
look  out  for  him!  One  seems  to  be  able  to 
strike  more  suddenly,  more  unexpectedly,  and 
more  fiercely  with  that  weapon  than  with  any 
other. 

England's  greatness  began  and  grew  under 
Protection.  France  on  land,  and  England  on 
the  sea,  destroyed  utterly  the  Dutch  commercial 
supremacy,  and  then  for  a  century  England  and 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  127 

France  fought  for  the  mastery  of  the  sea,  for  the 
trade  of  the  East,  for  commercial  supremacy. 
Finally  at  Waterloo  the  mastery  was  gained,  and 
the  British  Empire  has  had  plain  sailing  from 
that  day  till  within  the  last  few  years. 

There  are  few  more  exciting  stories  than  this 
history  of  the  fight  for  the  commercial  empire  of 
the  world,  which  ended  in  England's  becoming 
the  trader,  the  manufacturer,  the  ship-builder,  the 
ship-owner,  the  banker,  and  the  policeman  of 
the  world.  It  is  a  tempting  task  to  fit  in  illus- 
trations, to  make  comparisons,  to  point  to  the 
beginnings  of  similar  weaknesses,  and  parallel 
examples  of  rottenness  here  and  there  in  the 
social  and  political  fabric  of  other  great  imperial 
powers,  which  seem  to  unfold  prophecies  for  the 
future,  but  I  leave  that  to  the  Englishman.  I  am 
not  his  Cassandra.  This  whisp  of  the  history  of 
commerce  is  given  here  merely  to  introduce  "The 
Governor  and  Company  of  Merchants  of  London 
trading  to  the  East  Indies,"  better  known  as  the 
English  East  India  Company,  or  the  "John 
Company,"  who  started  business  with  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  shareholders,  and  a  capital 
of  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars. 
The  man  with  that  amount  of  capital  is  not 
considered  a  rich  man  in  London  or  New  York 
to-day.     Nonetheless   it  was  this  trading  com- 


128        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

pany  who  won,  and  held,  and  turned  over  to  the 
British  crown,  the  empire  of  India. 

The  Portuguese  and  the  Dutch  fought  them 
in  the  beginning,  the  French  fought  them  later, 
and  one  power  after  another  succumbed  to  them 
in  India  itself.  By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  all  European  opposition  was  at  an  end, 
and  by  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
India  itself  was  practically  in  their  hands  and 
under  their  control.  To  be  quite  accurate,  1783, 
and  the  peace  of  Versailles,  marks  the  date  when 
the  maritime  powers  of  Europe  withdrew  from  all 
serious  rivalry  in  conquest  or  commerce  with 
England  in  India.  After  that  date  the  contest 
is  wholly  between  England  and  the  native  rulers 
for  ascendancy  in  India. 

The  first  territorial  possession  of  the  East  In- 
dia Company  was  Madras,  and  the  site  upon 
which  Fort  St.  George  was  built  was  bought 
from  the  Raja  of  Chandragiri  in  1639.  In  1661 
Bombay  was  turned  over  to  the  English  crown 
by  the  Portuguese,  as  part  of  the  dowry  of  Cath- 
erine of  Braganza,  the  queen  of  Charles  II.,  and 
in  1668  King  Charles  sold  his  rights  to  the  East 
India  Company  for  an  annual  payment  of  fifty 
dollars!  In  1700,  the  company  bought  from  a 
son  of  the  Emperor  Aurangzeb  certain  villages, 
which  were  united  to  form  what  is  now  Calcutta. 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  129 

Two  men  whose  names  are  seldom  mentioned, 
and  rarely  seen,  gained  for  English  commerce  al- 
most the  first  legal  foothold  in  India.  The  ship 
surgeon,  Gabriel  Broughton,  who  cured  Shah 
Jahan's  daughter  when  she  was  badly  burned; 
when  asked  to  name  his  fee,  requested  that  the 
East  India  Company  might  be  allowed  to  trade 
in  Bengal  free  of  all  duty. 

The  staff  surgeon,  William  Hamilton,  who 
when  the  court  physicians  had  failed,  cured  the 
Emperor  Farokshir  of  a  tumor  in  the  back  in 
1715,  asked  for  the  thirty  odd  villages  surround- 
ing the  Company's  factory  near  Calcutta,  and 
for  some  villages  near  Madras,  which  gave  the 
English  control  of  both  these  ports.  British 
commerce  leaves  Hamilton's  tombstone  neg- 
lected  in  Calcutta,  and  nobody  even  knows 
where  Broughton's  bones  lie! 

The  transfer  of  the  supreme  power  of  India 
from  the  grasp  of  the  Great  Mughal  to  this  little 
company  of  English  traders,  makes  a  story  as 
brilliant  and  adventurous  as  any  story  in  history. 

The  rise  of  British  power  in  India  virtually  be- 
gins in  1745,  and  the  two  great  names  are  those 
of  Clive  and  Hastings.  One  died  a  suicide,  and 
the  other  after  an  impeachment  lasting  seven 
years  was  completely  impoverished.  There  are 
men  in  India  to-day,  and  fine  fellows  they  are, 


130       THE   WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

risking  their  health  and  their  lives,  and  those  of 
their  families,  to  keep  India  for  England,  and 
there  are  almost  as  many  voluble  orators  at  home 
making  it  as  difficult  as  they  can  for  them.  There 
are  so  many  people  nowadays  who  think  this 
a  topsy-turvy  world  because  they  are  underneath, 
not  realizing  that  the  world  would  be  upside- 
down  indeed  if  they  were  not,  that  governing, 
particularly  the  governing  of  alien  peoples,  has 
become  increasingly  difficult. 

In  the  days  of  Clive  and  Hastings,  and  for 
about  one  hundred  years  after,  there  was  no  rail- 
way, nor  cable,  nor  Suez  Canal.  The  man  on 
the  spot  was  authoritative  and  responsible.  The 
Oriental  is  still  unable  to  understand  divided  au- 
thority, authority  dictated  from  an  unseen  source. 
It  may  be  safely  said  that  had  the  present  govern- 
mental machinery  been  in  existence  in  174.5,  In- 
dia might  never  have  become  a  fief  of  the  British 
Crown.  It  is  sometimes  fatal  to  interfere  even 
when  a  man  is  making  mistakes.  Interference 
may  poison  the  mistakes  with  lack  of  confidence, 
till  they  wilt  into  abject  and  costly  failure. 
While  mistakes  may  teach  a  man,  interference 
always  bewilders  him  and  those  under  him. 

After  the  death  of  Aurangzeb,  a  new  power, 
the  Marathas,  though  of  Hindu  origin,  with  their 
home  in  the  plains  east  of  Bombay,  overran,  and 


THE   GREAT   MUGHAL  131 

practically  took  possession  of,  northern  and  cen- 
tral India.  Sivaji,  their  great  leader,  began  his 
pillaging  crusades  even  before  the  death  of  Au- 
rangzeb.  After  his  death  a  Brahman  family, 
whose  head  took  the  title  of  Peshwa,  led  these 
people,  and  carried  on  for  a  hundred  years  a 
contest  with  the  British.  The  great  principali- 
ties of  Baroda,  Gwalior,  Indore  and  Nagpur, 
the  rulers  of  three  of  which  I  am  shortly  to  visit, 
were  the  centres  of  this  power. 

The  Sikhs,  now  some  of  the  best  soldiers  in  the 
Indian  army,  also  maintained  for  nearly  seventy- 
five  years  a  sovereignty  of  their  own  in  the  Pun- 
jab, and  were  only  finally  disposed  of  as  rivals  to 
the  British  in  1849. 

Of  the  Europeans,  who  from  the  beginning  of 
the  seventeenth  century  had  attempted  the  ex- 
ploitation of  the  commerce  of  India,  the  Portu- 
guese, the  Dutch,  the  Danes  had  disappeared, 
and  when  Clive  appeared  upon  the  scene,  only 
the  French  remained  as  formidable  rivals.  The 
battles  of  Wandiwash,  of  the  famous  Plassey,  of 
Buxar,  all  fought  between  1757  and  1764,  ended 
the  French  rivalry,  and  the  British  were  left  to 
deal  with  the  problem  of  subduing  what  remained 
of  opposition  in  India  itself. 

Another  quarter  of  a  century  passed  before 
Wellesley,  later  the  great  Duke  of  Wellington, 


132       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

finally  disposed  of  the  Maratha  confederacy;  and 
it  was  not  till  1856,  when  Lord  Dalhousie,  prob- 
ably the  greatest  of  all  the  governor-generals  of 
India,  having  annexed  the  Punjab  in  1849,  took 
over  control  of  the  kingdom  of  Oudh,  roughly 
the  territory  about  Lucknow,  that  the  map  of 
India  became  what  it  is  to-day.  It  was  Dal- 
housie who  wrote  just  before  taking  this  grave 
step:  "With  this  feeling  on  my  mind,  and  in 
humble  reliance  on  the  blessing  of  the  Almighty 
(for  millions  of  His  creatures  will  draw  freedom 
and  happiness  from  the  change),  I  approach  the 
execution  of  this  duty  gravely  and  not  without 
solicitude,  but  calmly  and  without  doubt."  The 
next  year,  1857,  was  the  year  of  the  Mutiny! 

I  quote  this  passage  because  I  wish  to  call  at- 
tention to  what  I  believe  to  have  been  the  secret 
of  England's  success  in  India.  This  success  has 
been  accounted  for  in  many  ways.  It  was  com- 
mercial greed,  say  some  critics;  it  was  brute  force; 
it  was  the  leverage  of  power  that  Great  Brit- 
ain had  gained  first  in  Europe,  write  the  histori- 
ans. The  first  steps  were,  if  you  please,  along 
the  path  of  commercial  greed,  but  later  when 
the  severe  work  of  administration,  pacification, 
and  consolidation  was  done,  it  was  quite  another 
force  that  crowned  the  work.  The  civil  service 
was  recruited  bv  examination   from   the   Bible- 


THE    GREAT   MUGHAL  133 

reading  upper  and  middle-class  of  Great  Britain ; 
game-playing,  adventurous  and  healthy,  but  at 
bottom  duty-loving  young  barbarians,  who  be- 
lieved that  India  was  delivered  into  their  hands 
to  be  saved  from  itself. 

The  first  and  foremost  of  them  was  Clive,  a 
tall,  silent,  rather  morose  English  lad,  who  began 
his  career  by  accusing  an  officer  of  cheating  at 
cards.  There  followed  a  duel.  Clive  missed,  his 
adversary  held  his  pistol  to  Clive's  head  and 
bade  him  beg  for  his  life  and  retract  his  accusa- 
tion. "Fire  and  be  damned  to  you!  I  said  you 
cheated  and  you  did.  I'll  never  pay  you!"  was 
the  reply. 

There  have  been  hundreds  of  lesser  Clives  in 
India  since  that  day,  and  to  them  is  due  the  con- 
quest and  peaceful  government  of  India,  more 
than  to  any  other  one  force. 

Imagine  the  United  States  of  America  peopled 
by  Sioux,  Apaches,  Mexicans,  and  Negroes.  Im- 
agine some  Mughal  conqueror  arriving  by  the 
Behring  Straits,  and  after  centuries  subduing  this 
conglomeration  of  fighters,  factions,  religions, 
and  languages.  Pampered  and  rich,  the  conquer- 
ors lose  control.  The  land  is  covered  with  small 
principalities.  There  is  a  king  in  Florida,  an- 
other in  Mexico,  another  in  Massachusetts,  and 
there  are  armed  bands  of  Mexican  bandits,  of 


134       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Apache  raiders,  of  Sioux  freebooters.  Imagine 
the  country  filled  with  jewels,  brocades,  silks, 
gold,  silver,  stored  up  for  centuries  by  an  indus- 
trious, uncommercial  people,  who  had  never 
learned  to  spend,  and  whose  rich  lived  almost 
as  simply  as  the  poor.  Something  like  that  state 
of  affairs  is  what  the  British  had  to  deal  with 
when  Clive  saw  that  merely  to  win  a  battle  here 
and  there  was  not  enough,  but  that  if  the  British 
were  to  stay  in  safety,  they  must  have  sovereign 
rights  over  the  land  itself.  They  now  control  the 
whole  million  and  a  half  square  miles. 


IV 

FROM  MUGHAL  TO   BRITON 

ON  landing  at  Bombay  one  discovers  that 
no  experience  of  travel  elsewhere  has 
prepared  the  way.  The  luxuries  are  dif- 
ferent, the  hardships  are  different,  the  whole  set- 
ting of  life  is  different.  I  am  greeted  on  the 
landing-stage  by  a  lean,  chocolate-colored  Indian, 
in  flowing  robes  and  a  huge  white  turban,  who 
presents  a  letter  from  a  soldier  friend  in  Luck- 
now,  who  has  engaged  him  as  servant  or  "bear- 
er" for  our  tour.  He  is  solemnity  personified, 
and  his  eyes  are  brown  depths  of  unfathomable 
impenetrability.  During  the  many  weeks  he  was 
with  us,  I  saw  him  smile  but  once.  We  were 
driving  at  Delhi,  he  was  sitting  on  the  box  with 
the  coachman.  One  of  the  ponies  became  frac- 
tious and  landed  one  of  his  heels  on  the  shin  of 
the  driver,  who  howled  with  pain.  Heera  Tall 
smiled,  but  even  then  there  was  no  light,  no  keen- 
ness of  joy  or  sorrow  in  his  eyes.  What  he 
thought  about  this  incident,  or  what  he  thought 
about  anybody  or  anything  else,  I  shall  never 

135 


136       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

know,  but  I  conclude  that  it  was  not  of  much 
importance. 

It  is  the  easy  habit  both  of  those  who  have 
lived  long  in  India,  and  of  those  who  merely  trot 
through  India,  to  describe  the  people  as  inscru- 
table, and  to  assume  that  there  are  depths  of 
thought  and  feeling  behind  the  unknown  tongue, 
and  the  unchanging  eyes,  which  are  too  subtle 
for  the  Western  mind.  It  occurs  to  the  traveller 
sometimes  that  this  is  a  mistake.  There  is  a 
great  difference  between  the  indefinite  and  the  in- 
definable. It  is  possible  that  India  is  not  so  much 
inscrutable  as  faded.  This  old,  old  civiliza- 
tion may  have  been  printed  so  often  from  the 
same  type  that  the  lettering  is  now  blurred  and 
indecipherable.  It  may  be  illegible,  too,  be- 
cause the  font  of  type  conveys  nothing  very  in- 
telligent or  profound  even  to  the  users  thereof. 

Because  there  was  a  great  literature  in  India 
two  thousand  years  B.  C;  a  well-authenticated 
philosophy  worked  out  into  a  considered  system 
five  hundred  years  B.  C;  a  Sanskrit  grammar 
compiled  about  350  B.  C,  which  is  still  the 
foundation  for  all  study  of  the  Aryan  language: 
an  astronomy  which  had  succeeded  in  making  a 
fairly  correct  calculation  of  the  solar  year,  2000 
B.  C;  the  discoveries  of  notation  both  by  frac- 
tions and  algebra;  a   system  of  medicine,  with 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    137 

hospitals  and  dissecting-rooms;  an  art  of  music, 
with  its  seven  notes,  invented  500  B.  C;  a  code 
of  law,  the  Code  of  Manu,  put  into  its  present 
form  about  400  A.  D.;  and  a  vast  collection  of 
legends  and  stories  in  verse,  the  Mahabharata, 
the  main  story  dealing  with  a  period  not  later  than 
1200  B.  C,  because  all  this  is  the  fruit  of  the 
soil  of  India,  one  is  perhaps  tempted  to  overrate 
what  exists  of  intellectual  prowess  to-day.  The 
inscrutability  may  be  emptiness  rather  than  depth. 

My  singular  opinion  on  this  subject  was  not 
derived  from  a  study  of  the  bearer,  Heera  Tall, 
alone,  for  his  patient  inscrutability  was,  I  am 
now  convinced,  merely  a  veil  of  depravity.  He 
knew  that  what  he  knew  and  thought  about  was 
best  left  to  the  idealism  of  the  cloudiest  possible 
haziness. 

I  was  honored  with  the  opportunity  to  know 
barristers,  journalists,  soldiers,  native  officials 
and  judges,  teachers,  holy  men,  small  landhold- 
ers, peasants,  monks,  princes,  and  educated  wo- 
men, while  in  India,  and  I  conclude  that  indefi- 
niteness,  rather  than  profundity,  describes  their 
education  and  their  philosophy  of  life.  It  is  not 
only  in  India,  and  at  this  present  time,  that  easy- 
going and  rather  flabby  intellects  have  been  will- 
ing to  accept  the  high-flown,  the  turgid,  and  the 
indefinite  as  wonderful  and  weighty. 


138       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

The  bluster  of  the  demagogue  appeals  to  the 
many,  and  the  mental  gyrations  of  the  transcen- 
dental lecturer  to  fashionable  women  appeal  to 
them,  at  any  rate  so  long  as  they  do  not  under- 
stand him.  Ignotum  pro  magnifico,  applies  in 
the  West  as  well  as  in  the  East.  It  is  almost 
incredible,  as  an  example  of  this,  that  Emerson 
should  have  said  of  Bronson  Alcott  and  his  silly 
"all  things  are  spiral,"  that  Alcott's  was  the 
greatest  philosophic  mind  since  Plato.  There 
are  even  fewer  men  who  have  minds  of  their 
own  than  have  fortunes  of  their  own.  We  are  all 
directly  descended  intellectually  from  Animism, 
and  the  clouds  and  mists,  the  distortions  and 
noises  of  the  mind  are  accepted  with  awe  by 
most  of  us,  as  mysteries  too  deep  for  us,  when  as 
a  matter  of  fact  what  is  not  clear  is  generally  the 
result  of  lazy  thinking,  rather  than  the  exploit  of 
an  intellect  dealing  with  matters  too  high  for  us. 

Of  the  religion  and  ideals  of  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  people,  I  have  written,  and  it 
seems  to  be  a  fatigued  philosophy,  and  a  blurred 
idealism,  which  animate  even  the  leaders.  The 
climate,  and  the  habits  which  necessarily  follow, 
tend  to  drowsiness,  rather  than  to  alertness  and 
well-defined  wants  and  wishes. 

Even  the  progressive  men  and  women  of  In- 
dia are  still  steeped  in  the  atmosphere  of  autoc- 


FROM  MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    139 

racy.  They  fumble  badly  with  the  new  scheme 
of  government,  brought  to  them  by  their  pres- 
ent rulers,  the  English.  England's  greatness  is 
due  in  no  small  degree  to  the  fact  that  she  has 
held  stubbornly  to  the  belief,  despite  republics 
and  revolutions,  that  all  men  are  not  equal,  nor 
all  entitled  to  an  equal  degree  of  liberty,  but  all 
entitled  to  an  equal  degree  of  justice.  France 
substituted  a  sham  equality  for  constitutional 
liberty,  and  the  results  are  seen  in  that  country 
to-day  in  the  hateful  and  hampering  tyrannies 
of  bureaucracy.  England  goes  so  far  as  to  de- 
clare by  law  that  her  people  are  not  equal,  but 
she  administers  justice  to  all  alike,  with  an  im- 
partiality and  a  rigidity  unknown  anywhere  else 
in  the  world.  Equality  is  a  sham,  justice  is  a 
reality.  Equality  has  never  been  realized,  jus- 
tice has  been  done.  One  is  purely  theoretical, 
the  other  practical.  England  thus  far  has  pre- 
ferred the  possible  reality  to  the  impossible  sham, 
with  the  result  that  her  citizens  have  more  per- 
sonal liberty,  and  are  more  unfettered  in  their 
activities,  than  the  citizens  of  any  other  country. 
I  found  few,  even  among  the  educated  in  In- 
dia, who  wanted  justice.  What  they  called  jus- 
tice I  found  meant  nearly  always  preference. 
The  unrest  and  sedition  in  India  are  entangled 
in    this   mesh   of   misunderstanding,   and    their 


140       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Western  sympathizers  are  unwittingly  making 
matters  worse,  by  using  words  which  mean  one 
thing  to  them,  and  another  thing  to  those  to 
whom  they  are  addressed.  It  should  not  be 
forgotten  in  studying  them  that  their  attitude 
toward  the  science  of  government  is  as  old  and 
as  deeply  bedded  in  their  brains  as  their  lit- 
erature, their  astronomy,  and  their  religion. 
Thousands  of  years  of  dampening  of  individual 
effort,  of  trusting  to  cunning,  to  bribery,  to  in- 
sidious influence,  have  distorted  all  notions  of 
justice.  They  suffer  from  what  Lord  Curzon 
admirably  phrases  as  the  "immemorial  curse  of 
Oriental  nations,  the  trail  of  the  serpent  that  is 
found  everywhere  from  Stamboul  to  Peking  — 
the  vicious  incubus  of  officialism,  paramount, 
selfish,  domineering,  and  corrupt.  Distrust  of 
private  enterprise  is  rooted  in  the  mind  trained 
up  to  believe  that  the  government  is  everything 
and  the  individual  nothing." 

One's  boyhood  notions  of  Clive  and  Hastings, 
and  of  the  "John  Company,"  are  at  once  modi- 
fied. An  hour  on  shore  in  Bombay  is  enough. 
Even  the  light  is  different.  It  is  like  that  white 
light,  so  purely  artificial,  in  which  you  are  placed 
by  the  photographer  when  he  asks  you  to  as- 
sume a  natural  expression.  The  effect  upon  you 
at  the  photographer's,  and  upon  everybody  in 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    141 

India,  is  the  same:  in  defending  yourself  from 
the  light  you  assume  a  concealing  expression. 
Thousands  of  years  of  this  light  have  done  more 
than  we  think,  probably,  to  produce  the  inscruta- 
bility so  much  talked  of,  and  which  may  after 
all  be  mainly  physical. 

Another  consequence  of  this  hot  white  light 
is  that  one's  clothes  are  piled  on  the  head  to  pro- 
tect the  brain.  Most  of  the  natives  in  the  streets 
have  more  yards  of  stuff  on  their  heads  than  on 
their  bodies.  Color  runs  riot.  Pinks,  blues, 
vermilion,  orange,  brown,  yellow,  red,  saffron, 
and  many  shades  of  all  of  them,  are  worn  by 
men  and  women ;  even  the  bullock-carts,  and  the 
horns  of  the  bullocks  themselves,  are  daubed 
with  glaring  colors.  Bare  legs,  breasts,  and  arms 
become  so  soon  familiar  that  the  most  scrupu- 
lously pantalooned  puritanism  soon  ceases  to 
notice  anything  unusual. 

The  short  journey  to  the  hotel  reveals  the 
teeming  millions,  for  where  else  could  nine  men 
be  spared  to  walk  through  the  streets  with  a 
grand-piano  balanced  on  their  heads;  reveals  the 
disdain  of  time,  for  where  else  is  a  trotting  bul- 
lock a  standard  of  speed,  except  in  Madeira 
where  the  oxen  draw  sledges;  reveals  the  una- 
shamed duplicity,  for  within  an  hour  after  our 
meeting  Heera  Tall  has  announced  his  wages  per 


142        THE    \YEST   IN   THE   EAST 

month  as  just  twice  the  amount  that  my  friend 
in  Lucknow  has  written  me  I  ought  to  pay;  re- 
veals the  supremacy  of  the  white  race,  for  where 
else  in  this  democratic  world  may  the  white  man 
walk  straight,  unconscious  and  unmenacing,  and 
yet  find  a  lane  made  for  him,  as  though  he  were 
a  locomotive  running  on  a  pair  of  rails  through 
a  town  of  prairie  dogs  ? 

An  official  of  importance  tells  me  that  the  first 
thing  he  does  on  his  holiday  visits  to  England  is 
to  walk  down  the  Strand,  that  he  may  recover 
from  the  place-giving,  salaaming  natives  whom 
he  governs,  and  be  jostled  and  elbowed  back  into 
the  equitable  pedestrianism  of  the  West.  One 
might  infer  from  this  that  the  Englishman  likes 
it,  that  the  white  traveller  likes  it.  I  can  only 
say  for  myself,  and  for  the  scores  of  English  of- 
ficials high  and  low  that  I  met,  and  some  of 
whom  I  knew  well,  that  it  is  not  a  situation 
that  the  white  man  produces  or  wishes;  rather 
is  it  wholly  and  entirely  what  the  native  has 
evolved  as  a  penetrating  and  all-embracing  legal 
atmosphere.  This  is  his  notion  of  justice,  and 
order,  and  equality.  He  created  it  ages  ago  for 
his  own  defence,  and  he  perpetuates  it  to-day  for 
his  own  security.  Palpable  power  he  must 
have,  or  there  is  anarchy.  No  one  knows  better 
than  the  rich  Parsi,  or  the  intriguing  Bengali,  or 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON     143 

the  peasant  proprietor,  or  the  head-men,  or  the 
money-lenders  and  laborers,  that  the  white  man's 
unimpeded  march  straight  through  city  or  vil- 
lage streets  is  the  symbol  for  them  all,  of  their 
life,  and  fire,  and  property  insurance. 

If  this  is  modern  Bombay,  what  must  have 
been  the  Calcutta  and  the  Madras  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago,  when  Clive  and  Hast- 
ings laid  the  foundation-stones  of  British  India  ? 
What  indeed  was  the  England  of  those  days,  the 
England  of  George  I,  who  could  not  read  Eng- 
lish and  "who  loved  nothing  but  punch  and  fat 
women";  the  England  of  George  II,  who  "had 
been  a  bad  son,  a  worse  father,  an  unfaithful 
husband,  and  an  ungraceful  lover";  the  Eng- 
land over  whose  political  life  was  the  soiling 
smear  of  Walpolean  corruption;  the  England 
whose  cabinet  ministers  fought  for  the  control 
of  the  secret-service  fund  used  for  the  bribery  of 
the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons;  the 
England  which  protested  not  a  word  that  Fox, 
as  paymaster  of  the  forces,  should  have  a  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds  of  the  nation's  money  out 
at  interest  for  his  own  account,  and  who  at  one 
time  made  a  mart  of  his  office,  and  paid  away  as 
much  as  twenty-five  thousand  pounds  in  one 
morning,  in  the  purchase  of  votes  to  buy  sup- 
port for  a  timorous  government? 


144        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

When  one  stops  to  think  of  the  political  con- 
ditions of  government  in  the  country  from  which 
Clive  and  Hastings  came,  and  of  the  conditions 
in  the  land  to  which  they  went,  one  is  surprised 
at  their  guiltlessness.  Clive  fought  like  an  Eng- 
lishman, but  he  bribed,  deceived,  and  on  one  oc- 
casion actually  forged  a  name  to  a  treaty,  like  an 
Oriental.  Both  he  and  Hastings  grew  to  look 
upon  the  getting  and  keeping  of  wealth,  in  a  fash- 
ion that  ruins  men,  whether  in  Calcutta  in  the 
eighteenth,  or  in  New  York  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury. Such  rupees,  and  such  dollars,  can  only 
buy  the  clothing  of  a  convict,  though  their  wear- 
ers and  their  descendants  live  in  palaces. 

Clive,  who  was  born  in  1725,  went  out  to  In- 
dia as  a  clerk  in  the  service  of  the  East  India 
Company  at  the  age  of  eighteen.  He  was  a 
whole  year  getting  from  London  to  Madras,  one 
can  go  from  London  to  Bombay  now  in  fourteen 
days,  and  the  territory  of  the  company  he  was 
to  serve  consisted  of  a  few  square  miles,  and 
even  for  that,  rent  was  paid  to  the  native  govern- 
ments. Here  is  a  picture  of  an  uncouth  and 
morbid  young  man,  destined  to  mope  in  an  office 
chair.  The  French  and  the  English  go  to  war. 
A  French  governor  of  Mauritius  captures  Ma- 
dras. Clive  joins  the  army,  but  peace  is  declared 
and  he  returns  to  his  desk.     Peace  in  Europe  did 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    145 

not  impose  peace  in  India.  A  Frenchman  of 
great  ability,  Dupleix,  by  name,  saw  the  oppor- 
tunity to  tie  together  the  scattered  fagots  of  power 
left  in  India  after  the  death  of  Aurangzeb,  the 
last  of  the  Mughals,  and  began  to  do  so.  He 
played  one  Indian  state  against  another,  and 
backed  by  a  small,  but  vastly  superior  force  in 
point  of  efficiency,  he  put,  and  kept  in  power  the 
native  ruler  or  rulers  he  favored,  and  he  soon 
became  himself  the  supreme  influence  in  south- 
ern India.  Clive  is  now  twenty-five.  He  urged 
his  superiors  to  strike  a  blow  to  save  India,  and 
the  English  trading  company,  from  complete 
French  supremacy.  He  marched  to  Arcot,  and 
took  it  without  a  blow.  He  was  besieged  there, 
he  was  offered  large  bribes  to  surrender,  held  out 
for  fifty  days,  was  attacked,  defeated  the  enemy, 
and  marched  back  to  Madras  as  the  first  suc- 
cessful English  soldier  in  India.  There  he  found 
Major  Stringer  Lawrence  just  arrived  from  Eng- 
land, and  his  superior  in  command.  The  Law- 
rences could  make  a  frieze  of  their  names  around 
India's  temple  of  fame.  This  first  Lawrence 
won  Clive's  friendship,  and  between  them  in  two 
years  they  broke  the  power  of  the  French  in  India. 
The  "fierce  equality"  of  the  Republic  to  be,  of 
the  French  Revolution,  could  brook  no  superior 
men  then,  as  now.     Dupleix  was  stripped  of  his 


146       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

fortune  and  his  fame,  and  died  in  obscurity;  La- 
bourdonnais  was  sent  to  the  Bastille,  and  Lally 
was  dragged  to  his  execution  with  a  gag  between 
his  lips.  No  wonder  the  French  are  not  col- 
onists ! 

Clive  returned  to  England,  still  a  boy,  to  be 
toasted  as  "General"  Clive,  and  to  receive  a 
diamond-hilted  sword  from  the  company  which 
he  had  saved.  In  1755  he  sailed  for  India  with 
a  commission  of  lieutenant-colonel,  and  the  ap- 
pointment of  governor  of  Fort  St.  David  at 
Madras. 

The  province  of  Bengal  was  governed  by  a 
native  prince  of  eighteen,  who,  becoming  jealous 
of  the  growing  power  of  the  English,  found  an 
excuse  for  attacking  Calcutta.  Most  of  the  Eng- 
lish fled  down  the  river,  but  one  hundred  and 
forty-six  remained.  Surajah  Dowlah  or  Siraj- 
ud-daula  —  his  name  deserves  to  be  remembered 
—  ordered  these  prisoners  to  be  confined  in  the 
jail  at  Fort  William,  a  room  eighteen  feet  square. 
It  was  June.  I  know  the  heat  of  Calcutta  in 
March,  what  must  it  be  in  June  ?  The  na- 
tives prodded  these  English  men,  women,  and 
children  into  the  jail,  and  laughed  at  them  and 
ridiculed  them  as  they  suffocated.  In  the  morn- 
ing twenty -three  were  taken  out  alive.  The  one 
Englishwoman  who  survived  was  sent  off  to  the 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    147 

harem  of  the  young  prince.  This  is  the  Black 
Hole  of  Calcutta  story. 

Truly  the  English  are  a  phlegmatic  race.  In 
the  year  1910,  in  Calcutta  again,  they  screen 
the  motor-car  of  their  viceroy,  of  the  representa- 
tive of  their  king,  with  heavy  wire  netting,  be- 
cause the  descendants  of  the  people  of  Surajah 
Dowlah  throw  stones  at  him.  It  seems  a  slow 
method  of  teaching  self-government  in  India,  and 
somewhat  expensive  in  the  lives  of  men  and  chil- 
dren, and  the  purity  of  women,  but  no  doubt 
they  know  best. 

On  hearing  of  this  outrage,  Clive  and  a  squad- 
ron under  Admiral  Watson  sailed  for  Calcutta. 
Calcutta  was  recovered  with  little  fighting,  and 
much  to  Clive's  regret  the  Nawab  Surajah  Dow- 
lah consented  to  a  peace,  and  made  compensa- 
tion to  the  company  for  their  money  losses  — 
the  men,  women,  and  children  were  not  paid 
for !  This  might  have  been  the  end  of  the  story, 
but  again  there  was  war  between  England  and 
France.  Clive  took  up  the  gauntlet  in  India. 
Surajah  Dowlah  sided  with  the  French.  Clive 
marched  out  to  Plassey,  about  seventy  miles 
north  of  Calcutta,  with  1,000  Europeans,  2,000 
Sepoys,  and  8  pieces  of  artillery.  The  Nawab's 
army  numbered  35,000  foot  and  15,000  horse. 
Clive  attacked  while  the  enemy  were  at  dinner, 


148       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

and  scattered  the  Nawab's  army  to  the  winds. 
This  was  June  23,  1757,  just  a  hundred  years 
before  the  Mutiny. 

Clive  demanded  over  2,000,000  pounds  ster- 
ling as  an  indemnity,  and  was  paid  a  little  more 
than  half  that  sum,  of  which  Rs.  200,000  went 
to  Clive  as  commander-in-chief,  and  Rs.  1,600,- 
000  as  a  private  donation.  A  sum  equal  to  about 
one  million  dollars  of  our  money  at  that  time. 
The  rupee  has  since  declined  very  much  in  value. 
At  the  same  time  the  landholders'  rights  of  the 
882  square  miles  around  Calcutta  were  granted 
to  the  company.  Later,  the  land  tax  was  given 
to  Clive  personally,  and  he  thus  became  the  land- 
lord of  the  company  he  served. 

Following  the  fashion  of  the  day,  Clive 
schemed  to  put  his  own  candidate,  Mir  Jafar, 
in  the  place  of  Surajah  Dowlah.  While  prepar- 
ing to  oust  him,  he  plotted  against  him  and  used, 
amongst  others,  a  wily  Hindu  named  Omichund. 
The  Hindu,  knowing  the  secrets  of  the  plot, 
threatened  to  inform  Surajah  Dowlah,  unless  he 
were  promised  a  bribe  of  three  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds.  He  further  demanded  that  this 
payment  to  himself  should  figure  in  the  treaty. 
Clive  prepared  two  treaties,  one  shown  to  the 
Hindu  blackmailer  with  the  promise  of  payment 
included,   the   other   without    it.     Fearing   that 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    149 

Admiral  Watson  would  disapprove,  he  forged 
Watson's  name  to  the  treaty.  When  all  was 
over,  the  Hindu  was  informed  that  he  had  been 
out-Orientalized  by  Clive,  and  later  went  mad. 

Mir  Jafar  began  to  fear  the  very  power  that 
upheld  him,  and  secretly  intrigued  with  a  Dutch 
force  which  arrived  from  Java.  Clive  routed 
these.  Their  ships  were  destroyed,  their  troops 
scattered,  and  three  months  later  Clive  sailed  for 
England.  He  was  a  great  man  now,  and  be  it 
said  he  had  great  expectations  of  the  honors  to 
be  awarded  him  at  home.  Who  has  not  been 
disappointed  in  such  expectations  ?  Clive  was. 
lie  was  a  rich  man  now.  He  had  sent  home 
more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pounds,  and  he  had  besides  the  spendid  income 
from  the  land  rents  given  him  by  the  grateful 
Indian  prince  he  had  supported.  Praise  has  a 
parasite,  one  steady  and  constant  companion, 
malice.  Clive  was  attacked  in  Parliament,  and 
he  was  attacked  even  by  the  shareholders  of  the 
East  India  Company. 

Five  years  after  leaving  India  for  the  second 
time,  he  was  besought,  even  by  those  who  had 
attacked  him,  to  go  back  to  save  India  again,  to 
save  her  from  the  bribe-taking  and  personal  ped- 
dling of  the  company's  own  servants.  Stories 
of  repeated  revolutions,  of  a  disorganized,  pillag- 


150       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

ing,  and  corrupt  administration  reached  Lon- 
don.    Clive  alone  could  save  the  situation. 

He  was  made  governor  and  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  British  possessions  in  Bengal,  and 
as  Baron  Clive  of  Plassey  in  the  peerage  of  Ire- 
land, he  arrived  in  Calcutta  in  May,  1765,  and 
remained  a  year  and  a  half.  He  had  now  to 
fight  the  corruption,  both  military  and  civilian, 
of  his  own  people.  Even  British  officers  threat- 
ened to  resign  if  they  were  not  allowed  to  steal. 
He  forbade  the  receiving  of  gifts  from  natives, 
he  prohibited  private  trade,  he  increased  the  sal- 
aries of  the  company's  servants,  he  set  the  house 
of  India  in  order,  declined  any  reward,  and  re- 
turned to  England  poorer  than  when  he  left  it. 

These  were  the  days  of  the  nabob,  and  Clive 
was  pointed  to  as  the  chief  nabob  of  all.  Eng- 
lishmen of  little  education,  training,  or  taste, 
returned  from  India  with  swiftly  made  fortunes. 
They  out-housed,  out-carriaged,  out-entertained, 
out-spent,  and  outraged  the  feelings  of  their 
home-keeping  neighbors.  Like  many  of  the 
present-day  American  millionaires,  they  rode 
rough-shod  mounted  on  Money.  India  in  those 
days  was  far  away  from  England.  People  did 
not  go  there  for  a  winter's  jaunt  as  now  they 
go.  Officers,  military  and  civil,  did  not  go  and 
come,  and  send  their  wives  and  daughters  home 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    151 

during  the  hot  season.  Men  went  to  India,  even 
the  servants  of  the  East  India  Company  went,  to 
exploit  India  not  to  serve  her,  to  bring  back  a 
fortune  as  speedily  as  possible  for  themselves, 
not  to  protect  the  wealth,  and  to  increase  the 
wealth,  and  to  conserve  the  resources  of  India 
for  the  people  of  India. 

They  formed  connections  that  were  degrading, 
they  made  themselves  as  comfortable  as  a  horde 
of  cheap  and  obsequious  servants  could  make 
them,  and  they  became  a  race  apart,  born  of 
unlettered  and  irresponsible  prosperity.  When 
they  returned  to  their  native  land  they  had  other 
moral  habits,  tyrannous  and  irritable  manners, 
ways  of  vulgar  self-assertion,  and  the  belief  that 
mouthfiils  of  oaths  and  fistfuls  of  gold  were  the 
proper  and  most  efficient  weapons  of  civilization. 
They  bound  books  that  they  did  not  read,  they 
bought  pictures  they  did  not  appreciate,  they 
housed  themselves  as  territorial  magnates,  who 
were  but  social  pygmies,  and  substituted  a  gilded 
self -consciousness  for  family  tradition.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  the  manners  and  morals  of  the 
majority  of  their  enemies,  either  then  or  now, 
offered  security  of  standing,  for  the  criticisms 
passed  upon  either  the  nabob  of  the  eighteenth 
or  the  nabob  of  the  twentieth  century.  There  is 
a  crowd  of  social  as  of  political  urchins  always 


152       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

with  leisure,  and  always  ready  to  join  in  the  pur- 
suit of  the  unfortunate  and  the  unpopular. 

"  I've  rings  on  my  fingers, 
I've  bells  on  my  toes, 
I've  elephants  to  ride  upon 
My  little  Irish  Rose. 

So  come  to  your  Nabob," 
&c.  &c. 

was  one  of  the  jingles  of  the  general  ridicule  of 
the  time.  When  virtue,  righteously  indignant, 
sounded  the  horn  for  the  chase,  malice,  envy, 
jealousy,  and  their  cur-companions  joined  the 
pack,  delighted  to  have  the  opportunity  to  yelp, 
and  snarl,  and  snap,  and  bite  if  possible,  in 
such  distinguished  company,  and  under  auspices 
which  made  their  jackal  impudence  look  leonine. 
One  may  admire  the  Burke  of  those  days,  or  of 
this,  but  the  pack  of  muck-rakers  which  yelps 
the  chorus  is  as  contemptible  now  as  then.  One 
is  tempted  to  defend  the  nabob  merely  because 
the  majority  of  his  accusers  and  assailants  are 
actuated  by  such  mean  motives. 

I  sometimes  shock  my  dilettante  and  prema- 
turely effete  American  friends,  by  expressing  my 
hearty  enjoyment  of  the  horde  of  Occidental  na- 
bobs from  my  own  country,  who  nowadays  pour 
through  Europe.  Their  naif  test  of  what  is  pre- 
cious by  its  price;  their  sentimental  longing  and 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    153 

reverence  for  what  is  old;  the  clothing  of  their 
women,  imitated  from  the  only  models  they  are 
privileged  to  see  at  close  quarters,  the  cocottes  of 
Paris;  their  reiterated  nasal  narration  of  the  his- 
tory of  their  dollars,  and  their  glowing  enumera- 
tion of  those  to  come ;  their  swiftly  acquired  and 
confidential  comradeship  with  hotel  clerks,  cou- 
riers, and  shop-keepers;  their  confident  views, 
boldly  expressed,  upon  subjects  with  the  element- 
ary aspects  of  which  they  are  totally  unfamiliar; 
their  chief  occupations,  which  seem  to  be  spend- 
ing money,  advertising  their  wives  and  daughters 
in  the  newspapers,  and  explaining  their  ances- 
try, in  all  these  symptoms  I  rejoice.  Such  peo- 
ple are  the  signal  and  sonorous  heralds  of  the 
power  of  mere  money,  and  at  the  same  time 
ominous  examples  of  the  graces  it  destroys;  they 
are  hard-featured  and  soft-handed;  they  are 
cultivated  by  those  who  would  prey  upon  them, 
and  shunned  almost  with  loathing  by  the  aris- 
tocracy of  simplicity,  sincerity,  and  responsi- 
bility; they  are  the  modern  barbarians  of  the 
Rome  of  modern  civilization;  they  are  of  those 
who  must  define  the  word  "gentleman"  them- 
selves in  order  to  be  included  in  the  definition, 
and  no  body  of  men  spend  so  much  time  at  the 
task ;  and  even  now  against  their  brutal  and  con- 
scienceless methods  the  state  is  arming  itself. 


154       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

Every  one  knows  the  names  of  these  leaders 
of  the  Goths  and  Vandals  of  our  time,  and  no 
libraries,  parks,  colleges,  hospitals,  and  cringing 
clerical  receivers  of  such  bribes  can  cloak  them 
in  the  shining  garments  of  charity;  we  all,  alas, 
are  surrounded,  too,  by  their  imitators,  who, 
though  lacking  in  their  prowess,  lack  nothing  of 
their  lust  for  plunder.  The  sad  feature  of  the 
situation  is  that  dignity  in  manners,  simplicity 
in  morals,  responsibility  of  wealth,  fearlessness  in 
administration,  will  all  suffer,  before  a  new  Rome 
emerges  from  the  clutches  of  this  blundering, 
plundering,  and  reckless  band. 

Why  do  I,  an  American,  rejoice  at  this  spec- 
tacle, it  may  be  asked.  The  answer  is  simple. 
The  higher  their  banners  hang  on  the  walls  of  the 
social  or  shopping  citadels  of  London,  Paris,  and 
New  York,  the  more  brazen  their  manners,  the 
more  high-handed  their  methods,  the  swifter  and 
surer  will  come  their  downfall.  I  laugh  to  think 
that  the  man  of  greasy  complexion,  of  glittering 
eye,  of  over-full  belly  and  protruding  pocket,  can 
believe  that  because  London  dines  with  him  in 
order  to  escape  with  some  of  his  wealth  tied  up  in 
his  daughter's  trousseau,  because  Paris  panders 
to  him,  that  therefore  he  is  meant  to  strangle 
the  Puritan  of  the  East,  and  the  Cavalier  of  the 
South,  and    the    honest    emigrant   on    the   land 


FROM  MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    155 

between  them,  of  my  country.  His  trial  is  not 
far  off,  and  his  Burke  and  his  Sheridan  are  pre- 
paring their  suit  against  him,  and  the  Western 
nabob  will  disappear  as  did  his  Eastern  proto- 
type. He  has  been  permitted  to  grow,  from  the 
days  of  Jay  Gould  and  Jim  Fisk  rascality,  and 
to  escape  thus  far,  through  no  intrepid  or  in- 
genious defence  of  his  own,  but  because  those 
who  oppose  and  despise  him  shrink  from  seeming 
to  ally  themselves  with  any  form  of  socialism  in 
attacking  him.  I,  for  one,  would  rather  suffer 
the  nabob,  than  to  see  the  worthy  ambitions, 
energy,  initiative,  and  the  commercial  aggres- 
siveness and  ability  of  my  country  taxed  into  cow- 
ardice, and  be-lawed  into  helplessness,  by  the 
leaders  of  a  mob  of  all  the  shiftlessness,  envy, 
crankiness,  and  inability  in  the  land.  I  would 
rather  a  few  freebooters  escaped,  than  that  the 
state  should  be  bullied  by  a  bureaucracy  created 
and  supported  by  the  state  itself.  Every  man 
who  mulcts  the  treasury  of  a  railroad,  who  uses 
false  weights  for  his  sugar,  or  who  rigs  the  stock 
market,  shouts  "Socialism"  when  it  is  attempted 
to  punish  him.  Just  the  contrary  is  true.  The 
men  who  do  most  to  bring  the  menace  of  social- 
ism are  these  very  financial  freebooters,  bar- 
barians, and  nabobs  of  the  West,  whose  salient 
characteristics  I  have  attempted  to  describe.     It 


156       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

is  nonsense  to  proclaim  that  we  cannot  have  jus- 
tice without  socialism  and  fair-dealing  without 
bureaucracy.  One  might  as  logically  assert  that 
to  hang  a  murderer,  or  to  imprison  a  thief,  means 
a  return  to  feudalism,  or  the  founding  of  an  au- 
tocracy. 

Wealth  and  power  in  the  ordinary  scheme  of 
things  should  be  hard  to  get,  but  equal  justice 
should  keep  them  within  reach  of  every  honest 
citizen  whose  labors  and  abilities  deserve  them. 
Inferior  people  always  think  that  the  work  of 
the  writer,  the  painter,  the  soldier,  the  adminis- 
trator, once  it  is  done  must  be  easy  for  them, 
since  they  only  accomplish  what  is  easy  them- 
selves. They  account  for  it  by  luck  or  by  op- 
portunity, never  remembering  that  their  own 
abilities  never  seem  to  find  this  right  oppor- 
tunity. That  is  what  luck  is.  It  is  the  hard 
work  done  by  ability  and  opportunity  when  they 
meet.  There  is  only  one  success  which  is  easy, 
but  also  precarious,  and  that  is  intemperate  ora- 
tory fondling  the  mob  with  deceitful  words. 

Clive  stood  out  as  the  chief  of  the  nabobs,  he 
became  the  best-hated  man  in  England.  A  com- 
mittee of  Parliament  censured,  but  did  not  con- 
demn him.     He  died  by  his  own  hand  in  1774. 

Clive  went  to  India  when  India  was  fifteen 
thousand    miles   away.     He   changed    the   East 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    157 

India  Company  from  a  band  of  plundering  ped- 
lers,  into  the  beginnings  of  a  beneficent  govern- 
ment. He  won  for  England  the  greatest  de- 
pendency she  has  ever  had,  or  ever  will  have. 
He  realized  to  the  Indian  a  white  governor  as 
powerful  and  more  just  than  any  ruler  in  their 
history.  The  shadow  of  his  greatness  still  lends 
security  to  every  white  man,  woman,  and  child, 
and  likewise  to  every  brown  man,  woman,  and 
child,  in  India. 

He  forged  a  friend's  name,  he  lied  to  an  ac- 
complice, he  accepted  wealth  from  those  he  con- 
quered, he  died  by  his  own  hand. 

He  is  very  dull,  or  very  daring,  who  assumes 
the  right  to  hold  the  scales  of  justice  for  God, 
in  pronouncing  a  final  verdict  upon  this  man. 
Few  of  us  are  so  greatly  good,  or  so  contempti- 
bly bad,  as  this  man.  Few  of  us  accomplish 
much,  or  leave  a  reputation  worth  puzzling 
over. 

Warren  Hastings  succeeded  Clive  as  governor- 
general  in  1772,  and  for  thirteen  years,  consoli- 
dated a  British  administration  in  India,  for  the 
vast  territories  which  Clive  had  done  so  much  to 
win.  He  became  the  organizer,  as  Clive  had 
been  the  founder,  of  the  British  Indian  Empire. 
One  is  tempted  to  write  on  of  Hastings,  as  the 
temptation   to   write   of   Clive   was    irresistible. 


158       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

There  was  still  rough  work  to  do  and  Hastings 
used  rough  weapons. 

Authority  means  responsibility,  responsibility 
demands  control,  and  control  easily  converts  itself 
into  possession.  Such  was  the  logical  progres- 
sion of  the  English  in  India.  They  demanded 
peace  and  fair  play  for  themselves,  and  then  for 
those  whom  they  protected.  The  sphere  of  in- 
fluence of  this  trading  company  easily  widened 
to  dominion.  Protection  for  themselves  or  their 
allies  often  meant  war,  and  war  to  insure  its  effi- 
cacy meant  control,  and  control,  disputed,  was 
followed  by  possession. 

This  cycle  of  progress  has  reached  such  a  pitch 
that  to-day  the  British  crown  has  stretched  its 
sphere  of  influence  not  only  throughout  India, 
but  far  beyond  the  boundaries  of  India.  From 
Singapore  in  the  south  to  Afghanistan  in  the 
north,  and  from  Thibet  in  the  east  to  Persia  and 
Egypt  in  the  west,  is  included  in  the  vast  cloak 
of  territory  now  deemed  necessary  to  the  pro- 
tection from  rough  political  weather  of  that  lit- 
tle colony  of  rented  acres  to  which  Clive  sailed  in 
1743.  Take  a  map  and  look  at  it.  The  Ind- 
ian Empire,  or  its  allies  and  feudatories,  now 
occupies  the  whole  area  of  southern  Asia  be- 
tween Russia  and  China.  On  the  north  and 
west  she  controls,  as  against  a  possible  offensive 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    159 

move  from  Russia,  Beluchistan,  Afghanistan, 
Kashmir,  and  the  petty  states  beyond  Kashmir 
up  to  the  skirts  of  the  Hindu  Kush  Mountains. 
To  the  east  and  south  are  Nepal  and  Burma,  and 
beyond  Burma  a  line  of  semi-independent  chief- 
tainships, which  serve  as  buffers  between  India 
and  China.  The  outer  frontier  of  British  India 
has  an  immense  circumference.  The  south- 
eastern extremity  on  the  Gulf  of  Siam  extends 
thence  to  Thibet  on  the  north,  thence  north  and 
westward  to  the  Oxus.  On  the  north-west  it 
covers  Afghanistan  and  Beluchistan,  and  finally 
has  its  western  and  southern  extremity  on  the 
shores  of  the  Arabian  Sea.  This  is  what  the 
British  Empire  has  undertaken  to  defend  against 
Japan,  China,  Russia,  Persia,  and  Turkey, 
and  with  Germany  on  her  flank  in  the  North 
Sea.  There  can  be  no  weakening,  no  social- 
reform  flabbiness,  if  these  colossal  territorial  re- 
sponsibilities are  to  be  properly  safeguarded. 
There  is  also  a  discontented,  some  say  seditious, 
many  say  disloyal,  population  in  India  to  keep 
under.  In  Lucknow  and  other  towns  the  statue 
of  the  empress-queen  is  guarded  day  and  night 
by  a  sentinel,  to  protect  it  from  coarse  infamy 
and  injury. 

The  history  of  the  settling  of  the  boundary 
stones  is  a  long  and  complicated  one,  reaching 


160       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

down  to  that  gallant  soldier  and  patriot,  and  dis- 
tinguished historian,  Lord  Roberts,  who  is  alive 
to-day. 

The  history  of  the  settlement  of  the  moral 
territory  was  concluded  once  and  for  all  when, 
after  Clive's  impeachment,  his  successor,  War- 
ren Hastings,  was  also  impeached,  in  a  trial  last- 
ing seven  years,  a  trial  conducted  for  the  British 
crown,  and  for  the  Christian  world,  by  Burke. 
The  pith  of  the  matter  at  issue  was,  whether  the 
control  of  alien  races  by  Christian  rulers  per- 
mitted the  use  of  alien  methods  and  morals; 
whether,  in  short,  the  Western  ruler  should  be 
permitted  to  have  an  easy  code  of  geographical 
ethics,  one  for  London,  and  one  for  Calcutta; 
one  for  Amsterdam,  and  one  for  Java ;  one  for 
Washington,  and  one  for  Cuba ;  one  for  Brussels, 
and  one  for  the  Congo.  Theoretically  the  ques- 
tion was  settled  for  all  time  at  the  trial  of  War- 
ren Hastings  in  the  historic  hall  at  Westminster; 
practically  it  is  still  to  be  enforced,  but  only  here 
and  there,  and  by  conquerors  other  than  the 
Anglo-Saxons.  St.  Augustine  writes:  "To  ex- 
tend rulership  over  subdued  natives  is  to  bad 
men  a  felicity,  but  to  good  men  a  necessity." 

The  East  preys  upon  the  weak,  the  West  pro- 
tects the  weak.  The  social  economy  of  the  East 
is  based  upon  the  law  of  the  jungle,  we  of  the 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    161 

West  make  the  attempt,  at  least,  to  base  our 
own  upon  the  dicta  of  Christ.  Therein  lies  the 
difference  which  separates  us  completely.  It  is 
the  difference  between  the  wolf  and  the  sheep- 
dog. I  do  not  maintain  that  the  shepherd's  dog 
is  always,  everywhere,  perfectly  correct  in  his 
behavior,  but  his  ideal  and  his  general  standard 
of  conduct  are  protection  and  guidance  for  the 
sheep,  and  affection  and  loyalty  for  his  master. 
While  the  ideal  and  the  general  standard  of  the 
wolf  are  to  kill  both  shepherd  and  sheep,  if  it 
can  be  done  with  safety  to  himself. 

Even  after  the  new  code  of  the  rulers  was  firmly 
established  morally,  it  had  to  fix  itself  physically. 
The  natives  of  India  could  not  be  taught  in  a 
hundred  years  to  believe  what  for  two  thousand 
years  and  more  they  had  been  beaten  and  plun- 
dered into  not  believing.  The  Mutiny  in  1857 
was  the  result  of  their  scepticism.  The  motto 
of  that  trading  company  in  1757  might  well  have 
been :  Omnes  diligunt  munera,  but  the  most  bit- 
ter enemy  of  Great  Britain  must  confess  that  her 
civil  service  both  in  India  and  elsewhere  is  now  a 
standard  for  the  world.  Candor  non  laeditur  auro. 

The  civil  government  of  two  hundred  and 
thirty-two  millions  and  the  partial  control  of 
sixty-six  millions  in  India  are  now  in  the  hands 
of  about  one  thousand  two  hundred  Englishmen, 


162        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

including  military  officers  in  civil  employ  and 
others,  and  I  doubt  if  there  is  one  brown  man's 
rupee  in  any  white  man's  pocket  that  should  not 
be  there.  But  a  man  may  be  honest,  contemp- 
tuously; just,  arrogantly;  and  confident,  care- 
lessly, that  those  beneath  him  will  accept  his 
actions  without  his  sympathy,  and  judge  him  by 
his  morals  rather  than  by  his  manners.  But 
that  is  not  the  brown  man's  way.  The  prohibi- 
tion of  sati,  or  widow-burning;  the  execution  of 
the  high-caste  Brahman  like  any  low-caste  man, 
if  he  was  found  guilty;  the  missionary  assertive- 
ness  on  behalf  of  themselves  and  their  converts; 
the  indifference  to  the  laws  of  caste;  the  doing 
away  with  any  legal  obstacle  to  the  remarriage 
of  widows ;  tales  that  in  the  jails  all  were  fed  alike 
without  reference  to  caste;  the  fear  of  the  Brah- 
mans  that  they  would  lose  their  position  and  in- 
fluence; the  readjustment  of  land  revenues  and 
taxes;  the  settlement  of  claims  and  boundaries; 
the  lapse  of  territory  to  the  British  power  in  de- 
fault of  direct  or  collateral  heirs;  the  story  of 
the  Enfield  cartridges  greased  with  a  mixture  of 
cow's  fat  and  lard  —  true  as  shown  by  the  in- 
vestigations of  Mr.  Forrest  —  Lecky  writes  that 
the  Sepoys  in  the  Mutiny  had  "sound  reason" 
for  fearing  injury  to  their  religion  as  Hindus  and 
Mussulmans:  "This  i-  a  shameful  and  terrible 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    163 

fact,  and  if  mutiny  were  justifiable,  no  stronger 
justification  could  be  given  than  that  of  the  Se- 
poy troops";  the  sickening  sentimentality  of  the 
ignorant  English  at  home,  who  feted  and  petted 
a  certain  Azimula  Kham,  the  emissary  of  Nana 
Sahib  himself,  a  man  of  no  position  in  his  own 
country,  but  who  was  received  into  the  best  so- 
ciety in  London,  and  who  exchanged  love-letters 
with  ladies  of  rank  and  position,  even  became 
engaged  to  an  English  girl,  and  was  called  "her 
dear  Eastern  son"  by  an  idiotic  old  dowager; 
flogging  abolished  in  the  native  army,  but  con- 
tinued among  the  British,  the  natives  looking  on 
at  the  flogging  of  white  men;  the  annexation  of 
new  territories  until  the  Rajput,  the  Mahratta, 
the  Sikh,  and  the  Muhammadan  laid  aside  their 
common  jealousies  and  recognized  England  as 
equally  the  foe  of  all ;  no  rapid  intercommunica- 
tion as  now ;  a  British  force  in  India  of  thirty-six 
thousand  men  as  over  against  a  native  force  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty-seven  thousand,  besides 
the  armed  police,  and  lascars  attached  to  the 
artillery  as  fighting  men  —  it  would  have  been 
a  miracle  if  there  had  been  no  mutiny. 

Along  different  lines  much  the  same  thing 
goes  on  in  England  to-day,  and  again  it  will  be 
a  miracle  if  there  is  no  trouble  with  Germany, 
or  in  India,  within  ten  years.     One  can  depend 


164        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

upon  the  British,  however,  to  wait  for  that  event 
until  they  are  fully  unprepared. 

If  an  imaginative  observer  were  asked  to  coin 
a  phrase  least  adapted  to  the  present  situation 
and  condition  of  the  British  Empire,  he  might 
use  the  words:  "Englishmen  may  sleep  peace- 
fully in  their  beds!"  It  is  comical  to  record  that 
the  young  solicitor  who  answers  to  the  country 
for  the  navy  uses  this  phrase;  the  able  metaphy- 
sician who  responds  for  the  army  uses  this  phrase; 
the  lately  anarchical  labor  leader,  who  replies  for 
the  commerce  of  the  country,  uses  this  phrase; 
the  solicitor  who  is  responsible  for  the  finances 
of  the  country  uses  this  phrase;  the  Prime  Min- 
ister, a  scholarly  barrister,  and  be  it  said  the 
steady-headed,  strong-handed  master  of  them 
all,  despite  the  tales  to  the  contrary,  repeats  the 
same  phrase.  I  repeat,  for  an  almost  wearisome 
number  of  times,  they  are  a  great  people!  Fancy 
singing  "Rock-a-by,  baby,  on  the  tree-top"  to 
the  House  of  Commons  and  to  the  country,  with 
such  responsibilities,  such  perils,  such  warnings 
pressing  upon  their  attention.  We  may  all  envy 
them  their  sound  nerves.  If  this  cabinet  were 
a  drinking  cabinet,  I  should  ask,  as  did  Lincoln 
of  the  accusers  of  Grant,  for  the  brand  they  most 
affect.  I  should  indulge  myself,  and  distribute 
what  could  be  spared  in  Wall  Street. 


FROM   MUGHAL   TO   BRITON    165 

The  British  were  warned  over  and  over  again 
before  1857.  Read  that  rare  but  valuable  book, 
"Essays  Military  and  Political,"  by  Sir  Henry 
Montgomery  Lawrence,  and  see  the  blundering 
methods,  described  by  one  of  their  own  most  du- 
tiful servant  sons,  which  brought  on  the  Mutiny. 

The  native,  instead  of  understanding,  mis- 
understood. He  did  not  see  that  these  changes 
were  meant  for  his  good.  He  believed  that  the 
Brahman  was  a  law  unto  himself,  that  widows 
should  be  burned,  and  certainly  not  be  allowed 
to  remarry,  and  thus  stiffen  the  competition,  al- 
ready severe,  against  his  own  daughters.  The 
annexation  and  control  of  territory  was  robbery 
to  him;  he  did  not  see  that  it  meant  peace,  se- 
curity, and  justice.  That  the  Hindus'  cartridges 
were  to  be  greased  with  the  fat  of  the  sacred  cow, 
and  the  Muhammadans'  cartridges  greased  with 
the  fat  of  the  abhorred  pig,  was  to  them  what 
coarse  jests  at  the  miracle  of  the  Mass  would  be 
to  Catholics.  It  was  blasphemous,  terrible,  and 
ominous  of  mysterious  and  awful  spiritual  pun- 
ishment. 

We  rejoice  at  the  daring  of  Luther  and  Sir 
Thomas  More,  and  the  blood  and  fire  of  our 
own  religious  revolution,  why  then  be  aston- 
ished that  there  was  revolution  in  India  before 
the  protestant  there  won  freedom  of  opinion  and 


166       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

worship  ?  The  jaunty  confidence,  or  the  prayer- 
ful faith,  in  right  doing  of  the  white  man,  was 
not  accepted  as  the  voice  of  any  god  known  to 
them  by  the  Indians.  The  Indian  brain  seethed 
with  mutinous  misunderstanding,  and  why  not! 
The  English  were  so  obtuse  that  they  saw  not, 
neither  did  they  hear,  much  less  did  they  take 
any  precautions.  Many  of  the  most  energetic 
and  valuable  officers  had  been  drafted  off  from 
their  regiments,  both  to  serve  in  the  Crimea,  and 
to  meet  the  heavy  demands  of  the  many  newly 
acquired  territories  for  governors  and  advisers. 
I  quote  the  words  of  one  of  the  heroes,  and  the 
historian  of  that  time,  the  words  of  the  man  who 
has  retrieved  more  than  one  of  England's  maud- 
lin blunders,  the  man  who  is  to-day  emphasizing 
with  his  now  unequalled  experience  of  the  past, 
the  dangers  of  the  present  and  the  future,  Lord 
Roberts.  "Seniority  had  produced  brigadiers 
of  seventy,  colonels  of  sixty,  captains  of  fifty. 
Nearly  every  military  officer  who  held  a  com- 
mand or  high  position  on  the  staff  in  Bengal  when 
the  Mutiny  broke  out  disappeared  within  the 
first  few  weeks.  Some  were  killed,  some  died  of 
disease,  but  the  great  majority  failed  completely 
to  fulfil  the  duties  of  the  positions  they  held. 
Two  generals  of  division  were  removed,  seven 
brigadiers  were  found  wanting,  and  out  of  the 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    167 

seventy-three  regiments  of  regular  cavalry  and 
infantry  which  mutinied  only  four  commanding 
officers  were  given  other  commands,  younger 
officers  being  selected  to  raise  and  command  the 
new  regiments." 

These  were  the  gentlemen  who,  in  pajamas, 
with  a  whiskey-peg  and  a  cigar,  seated  on  the 
roof  of  a  bungalow,  drilled  the  natives  of  India, 
believing  that  the  gods,  and  literature,  and  re- 
ligion, and  customs  of  three  hundred  million 
people  for  two  or  three  thousand  years  would 
melt  into  acquiesence  at  the  wave  of  the  whiskey 
or  cigar-laden  hand  from  on  high. 

They  were  dealing  with  a  generation  which  had 
forgotten  the  anarchy  and  bloodshed,  the  pillag- 
ing and  oppression,  which  preceded  British  rule. 
Muhammadans  looked  back  to  the  time  when 
they  were  emperors  of  India,  and  when  British 
ambassadors  stood  meekly  on  the  lower  steps  of 
their  emperor's  throne.  The  Hindus  only  re- 
membered that  they  were  on  the  point  of  wrest- 
ing the  control  from  the  Muhammadans  when 
the  white  man  stepped  in.  The  interim  of  order, 
security,  and  justice  was  forgotten.  Instead  of  to 
a  magnificently  clad  figure  seated  on  a  bejewelled 
throne,  with  a  peacock's  tail  of  precious  stones 
worth  millions  as  a  background  for  his  turban, 
and  this  in  the  setting  of  a  marble  hall  which 


168       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

still  remains  as  a  monument  of  beauty,  instead 
of  to  this  he  salaamed  to  an  amorphous  and  rubi- 
cund figure  on  the  roof  of  a  cheaply  built  bunga- 
low, whose  sceptre  was  a  cigar,  and  whose  spir- 
itual life  was  contained  in  a  glass.  The  one  was 
thinking  of  curry  and  comfort;  the  other  of  tra- 
ditions, and  faith,  and  lost  prestige;  and  the 
gentlemen  of  curry  and  comfort  were  actually 
dumfounded  when  the  underfed  underlings  be- 
trayed them,  killed  their  women  and  children, 
and  marched  from  Meerut  to  Delhi,  before  they 
could  get  the  whiskey-fed  rheum  out  of  their 
eyes.  Indeed  they  let  a  whole  night  and  day  go 
by,  did  these  men,  whose  ancestors  had  driven 
Clive  to  suicide,  before  they  made  a  move.  How 
different  if  Clive  had  been  there! 

The  Mutiny  opened  May  the  10th,  1857,  and 
it  was  January,  1859,  before  the  English  gained 
complete  control  again.  And  at  what  a  price 
of  heroism  and  suffering !  But,  not  the  Mutiny 
nor  any  other  disturbance,  political  or  otherwise, 
in  India,  affects  more  than  a  minute  proportion 
of  India.  Throughout  the  Mutiny  the  peasants 
tended  their  fields;  the  rice,  the  wheat,  the  sugar, 
the  cotton  were  sown  and  reaped  as  usual.  Mill- 
ions in  India  did  not  even  hear  of  the  Mutiny. 
This  is  a  characteristic  of  India  to  be  empha- 
sized and  to  be  remembered.     No  other  country 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    169 

is  so  mute,  so  unconscious,  so  deaf  in  the  midst 
of  turmoil  and  bloodshed.  The  American  must 
school  his  imagination  to  this  situation.  A  fire 
in  Chicago,  a  flood  in  Texas,  an  earthquake  in 
California  is  a  fire,  a  flood,  an  earthquake  for 
the  whole  country.  Not  so  in  India.  There  were 
people  peacefully  at  work  within  fifty  miles  of  the 
fighting  who  knew  nothing  of  it;  and  even  now, 
flood,  plague,  or  famine  slays  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands in  one  part  of  India,  and  the  rest  of  India 
is  ignorant  and  undisturbed.  \\hen  one  hears 
of  unrest  in  India,  or  when  one  hears  that  India 
wants  this,  or  needs  that,  all  such  statements 
must  be  put  into  this  enormous  crucible  where 
they  are  ground  exceeding  small,  and  prove  to 
be  after  all  only  the  unrest,  the  need,  or  the  want 
of  a  minute  fraction  of  the  unwieldy  whole.  It 
is  like  one  of  the  huge  zoological  reconstructions 
of  another  age,  whose  hide  is  so  thick,  whose  ex- 
tremities are  so  far  apart,  that  unlike  any  other 
bodies  known  to  us,  what  touches  or  hurts  or 
heals  one  part  has  no  effect  upon  the  others. 

At  Cawnpur  was  a  large  native  garrison,  and 
when  they  mutinied  Nana  Sahib  put  himself  at 
their  head.  The  Europeans,  including  more 
women  and  children  than  fighting  men,  were  be- 
sieged  for  two  weeks,  and  then  trusting  to  a  safe- 
conduct    from   Nana   Sahib,   they   surrendered. 


170       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

They  embarked  in  boats  on  the  Ganges,  the 
boats  were  set  fire  to  and  shot  at  by  the  natives 
from  both  banks,  and  only  four  escaped.  The 
women  and  children  were  massacred  a  few  days 
later,  some  of  them  being  pitchforked  living 
upon  the  bayonets  of  their  murderers. 

Delhi  was  besieged  for  months  from  the  sur- 
rounding ridge,  over  which  I  have  walked  and 
driven,  but  it  was  only  in  September  that  the 
Kashmir  Gate  was  blown  in,  and  Nicholson  fell 
at  the  head  of  the  storming  party. 

The  chief  commissioner  of  Oudh  was  a  Law- 
rence, and  not  a  Lawrence  for  nothing.  He  pre- 
pared for  a  siege  in  the  Residency  at  Lucknow, 
and  was  mortally  wounded  there,  but  his  intelli- 
gent prevision  saved  his  companions  till  at  last 
Lucknow  was  relieved. 

It  is  one  of  the  ghastly  nightmares  of  history 
to  see  that  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta,  that  well  at 
Cawnpur,  that  cellar  in  the  residency  at  Luck- 
now, that  grave-dotted  ridge  at  Delhi.  Women 
and  children  outraged,  suffocated,  pitchforked 
on  bayonets,  burnt,  stabbed,  starved,  and  stran- 
gled :  it  is  a  horrible  tale.  Say  what  one  will  of 
all  that,  it  is  British  business,  British  vengeance, 
not  ours,  but  it  is  a  disgrace  to  the  whole  white 
race  that  British  callousness,  and  lack  of  taste 
and  reverence,  should  permit  these  graves  to  be 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    171 

overgrown  with  weeds,  should  suffer  that  miser- 
able little  graveyard  on  the  ridge  above  Delhi, 
should  allow  the  lettering  on  the  Kashmir  Gate 
to  become  defaced.  The  only  monument  in  all 
India  that  is  not  a  travesty  is  the  statue  of  John 
Nicholson,  and  more  than  one  of  the  statues  of 
the  white  empress  and  the  white  emperor  of 
India  are  black!  With  all  their  splendid  quali- 
ties and  achievements,  to  which  I  have  tried 
without  prejudice  to  do  justice,  their  stupid- 
ity is  at  times  as  criminal  as  their  attempts  at 
artistic  commemoration  are  grotesque.  If  taste 
is  not  indigenous,  we  can  and  do  supply  them 
with  a  West,  a  Whistler,  a  Sargent,  a  La  Farge, 
a  St.  Gaudens.  Let  them  knight  their  painters 
of  marble  baths,  and  Greek  maidens,  and  bridge 
problems,  and  over-decorated  wooden  sover- 
eigns, and  sentimental  scenes  of  bourgeois  do- 
mesticity, but  let  them  turn  over  their  monu- 
ments, in  which  we  are  all  interested,  to  the  real 
craftsmen  of  the  arts. 

The  East  India  Company,  its  first  charter 
signed  and  sealed  in  1600  by  Queen  Elizabeth, 
came  to  an  end  in  1858  after  the  Mutiny.  The 
administration  of  India  was  handed  over  to  the 
crown.  Queen  Victoria, later, on  January  1 ,  1877, 
to  be  proclaimed  empress  of  India,  issued  the  fol- 
lowing proclamation  when  India  was  taken  over: 


172       THE   WEST  IN   THE   EAST 

"We  hold  ourselves  bound  to  the  natives  of 
our  Indian  territories  by  the  same  obligations  of 
duty  which  bind  us  to  all  our  subjects;  and  these 
obligations,  by  the  blessings  of  Almighty  God, 
we  shall  faithfully  and  conscientiously  fulfil. 
And  it  is  our  further  will,  that  so  far  as  may  be, 
our  subjects,  of  whatever  race  or  creed,  be  fully 
and  impartially  admitted  to  offices  in  our  ser- 
vice, the  duties  of  which  they  may  be  qualified, 
by  their  education,  ability,  and  integrity,  duly 
to  discharge." 

I  quote  these  words  for  my  readers  because 
they  were  quoted  many  times  to  me  by  the  dis- 
contented natives  of  India.  The  British  went 
further  with  words  of  promise  than  they  find  it 
easy  to  go  in  actual  practice.  Intentions  have 
lungs,  breathe,  and  are  communicative.  The 
English  are  forever  intending  things  for  India, 
which  when  they  are  done  are  already  ungrate- 
fully received  as  things  long  ago  deserved;  and 
when  they  are  not  done,  and  compromise  is  sub- 
stituted, the  Indian  sees  nothing  but  hypocrisy 
and  broken  promises. 

A  distinguished  Indian  gentleman,  writing  of 
the  reforms  just  introduced  by  Lord  Minto,  says: 
"Why  is  there  so  little  enthusiasm  among  the 
educated  classes  about  them  ?  Why  are  some 
even  beginning  to  fear  that  they  may  fail  to  heal 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    173 

the  existing  distemper?  Because  a  certain  fa- 
tality seems  to  clog  the  steps  of  the  government, 
that  whenever  it  does  anything  useful  for  the 
people  it  knows  not  how  to  do  it  with  good  grace." 
The  italics  are  mine,  for  there  in  a  nutshell  is  the 
ever-present  criticism  of  British  rule.  It  is  just, 
honest,  but  unsympathetic  and  ungracious.  It 
is  a  delicate  and  a  difficult  problem.  One  must 
tread  softly  both  physically  and  metaphorically. 
We  ourselves  have  not  won  such  laurels  by  our 
dealings  with  the  ten  million  negroes  in  America 
that  we  can  afford  to  be  censorious,  or  to  offer 
easy,  ready-made  solutions  for  the  problem.  In- 
effable cocksureness  might  be  tempted  to  shout: 
Get  on  or  get  out !  were  it  not  for  the  possibility 
of  a  despatch  the  next  morning  announcing  a 
lynching-bee  in  one's  own  country,  to  emphasize 
one's  fallibility. 

If  you  and  I  had  taken  over  the  government 
of  a  distracted  country,  which  for  centuries  had 
dated  passing  events  from  the  last  raid,  the  last 
massacre,  the  last  famine,  the  last  deluge,  the 
last  plundering  ride  of  a  foreign  invader;  and  if 
we  had  laid  there  30,000  miles  of  railway,  100,000 
miles  and  more  of  telegraph  wire ;  if  we  had  wa- 
tered 17,000,000  acres  with  canals  of  our  own 
construction;  if  we  had  arranged  that  one  in 
every  seven  acres  of  the  whole  country  were  ir- 


174       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

rigated;  if  we  had  built  schools,  nursing  homes, 
dispensaries,  hospitals,  where  8,000,000  chil- 
dren are  vaccinated  and  25,000,000  people  re- 
ceive relief  annually,  and  post-offices  and  police- 
stations;  if  school  attendance  had  increased  from 
500,000  to  6,000,000;  if  the  letters  carried  had 
increased  from  none  to  700,000,000  annually; 
if  we  had  policed  the  country  from  end  to  end, 
administered  justice  without  fear  or  favor;  spent 
millions  of  money  and  thousands  of  lives  in  the 
country's  defence;  protected  the  people  from 
brutal  customs,  protected  the  widow  and  the 
orphan;  secured  to  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
his  rights,  his  property,  and  his  earnings;  if  out 
of  nearly  29,000  offices  of  the  government  draw- 
ing salaries  ranging  from  £60  —  no  small  in- 
come for  a  native  of  India  —  up  to  =£5,000,  as 
many  as  22,000  were  filled  by  natives,  and  only 
6,500  by  Europeans;  if  out  of  a  gross  revenue 
of  £75,272,000  only  £20,816,000  was  raised  by 
taxes  so-called,  while  in  England  taxation  sup- 
plies five-sixths,  and  in  India  only  about  one- 
fourth,  of  the  public  income;  if  we  had  reduced 
crime  to  proportions  smaller  than  in  England 
itself;  if  the  public  debt,  outside  of  debt  secured 
by  the  ample  asset  of  the  railways,  canals,  and 
so  on,  amounted  to  only  =£28,000,000,  a  sum  less 
than  half  of  what  it  cost  to  suppress  the  Mutiny 


FROM  MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    175 

alone ;  if  the  land,  which  when  we  took  charge  had 
hardly  any  commercial  value,  was  now  worth 
£300,000,000;  if  the  export  and  import  trade  in 
less  than  fifty  years  had  increased  from  £40,- 
000,000  to  £200,000,000,  while  taxation  works 
out  at  about  37  cents  per  head;  if  innocent  re- 
ligious and  social  customs  had  not  only  not  been 
changed,  but  protected  from  interference,  in 
these  days  too,  alas,  when  so  many  people  mis- 
take interference  for  influence,  and  in  a  land  of 
jarring  and  quarrelsome  sects  —  if  you  and  I 
had  a  fraction  of  these  things  accomplished  by 
the  English  in  India  to  our  credit,  we  should  be 
astonished  at  censure  from  without,  or  criticism 
from  within.  We  might  indeed  be  tempted  to 
resent  them. 

The  Indian  agitators  tell  the  people  that  the 
railways  carry  the  grain  away  from  the  starving, 
and  pay  large  dividends  to  the  builders;  that  the 
canals  carry  pestilence  and  disease;  that  the 
taxes  go  to  the  support  of  an  army  to  fight  Eng- 
land's battles,  and  to  the  support  of  officials  who 
bully  the  native;  that  the  schools,  and  hospitals, 
and  colleges  are  hot-beds  of  heresy,  where  the 
young  Indian  is  taught  to  deny  his  ancestral  be- 
liefs, that  the  foreign  ruler  may  surreptitiously 
introduce  his  own  creed  and  ritual.  These  are 
the  grosser  forms  of  seditious  talks  and  litera- 


176       THE   WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

ture  intended  to  impress  the  agricultural  class. 
The  more  intelligent  are  fed  with  more  subtle 
accusations. 

One  accusation  against  the  English  carries 
weight.  There  are  people  still  living  who  can 
remember  when  India  had  its  weavers  and  dyers 
by  the  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  when  weav- 
ing was  a  profitable  industry.  In  the  early 
years  of  the  last  century,  it  was  stated  in  evi- 
dence, that  the  cotton  and  silk  goods  of  India 
could  be  sold  in  England  at  a  profit  of  from  fifty 
to  sixty  per  cent,  and  there  and  then  the  English 
weaver  was  protected  by  duties  upon  this  class 
of  Indian  goods  of  from  seventy  to  eighty  per 
cent  on  their  value.  The  poor  Indian  weaver, 
earning  his  six  or  eight  cents  a  day,  was  ruined 
for  the  benefit  of  the  English  manufacturer. 
Lancashire  mills  are  protected  to  this  day  by 
duties  on  Indian  goods.  This  is  indefensible  and 
contemptible.  British  goods  are  forced  upon 
India  without  duty,  while  Indian  weavers  were 
starved  out  by  heavy  duties.  England  bids  In- 
dia supply  her  with  raw  materials,  that  she  may 
employ  her  capital  and  her  labor  profitably,  and 
then  sell  the  manufactured  articles  to  helpless 
India,  deprived  of  the  right  to  manufacture  for 
herself.  I  emphasize  this,  because  I  consider 
it  a  justifiable  and  competent  criticism  against 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    177 

British  rule.  We  must  all  agree,  Americans, 
French,  Germans,  that  we  should  go  to  war  in 
an  instant  against  such  unfair  oppression. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  accusation  of  lack  of 
sympathy,  of  comradeship,  of  social  intercourse, 
is  twaddle.  The  Indian  climate,  and  population, 
and  steady  adherence  to  religious  and  social  cus- 
toms have  swallowed  up  every  religion  and  every 
civilization  which  has  mixed  with  it,  from  Buddh- 
ism in  religion  to  the  Mughal  dynasty.  The 
British  maintain  control,  and  can  only  retain 
control,  by  refusing  any  intimacy  of  intercourse 
which  would  entail  the  mixing  of  one  civiliza- 
tion with  the  other.  They  have  their  own  clubs, 
their  own  sports,  their  sheltered  homes,  and  their 
own  codes.  They  go  out  to  India  in  relays,  and 
not  to  settle,  and  that  is  their  salvation.  They 
go  out  alone  or  with  their  families,  not  to  mingle 
and  to  mix,  but  to  work  at  governing,  and  to 
come  home  when  their  task  is  done  as  much 
Englishmen  as  when  they  went  out.  If  they 
went  to  India  with  their  families  to  be  swallowed 
up,  to  be  incorporated  socially,  morally,  and  po- 
litically, then  indeed  there  would  be  no  excuse  for 
their  rule  there.    Any  other  policy  would  be  fatal. 

No  race  except  the  English  could  maintain 
their  gravity  at  the  thought  that  purdah  parties 
are  a  political  necessity.     Most  of  the  Indian 


178       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

women  live  secluded,  and  always  in  public  cover 
their  faces,  which  is  termed  being  in  purdah. 
The  women  of  the  families  of  the  English  offi- 
cials have  been  urged  to  show  their  interest  by 
inviting  these  ladies  to  their  houses.  They  play 
children's  games  with  them,  eat  cakes  and  drink 
tea  with  them,  and  stroking  the  dome  of  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral  to  influence  the  dean  and  chap- 
ter is  no  more  futile  than  is  this  silly  soliciting 
of  comradeship  with  the  women  of  India,  as  a 
method  of  propitiating  the  irreconcilables. 

Mr.  Saint  Nihal  Singh  writes:  "Statistics  show 
the  number  of  female  children  married  under 
four  years  of  age  to  be  more  than  200,000,  of 
those  married  between  five  and  nine  to  be  over 
2,000,000,  and  those  married  under  fourteen  to 
be  8,000,000;  and  the  enforced  widowhood  of 
these  girls  is  the  greatest  curse  of  India.  But 
while  educated  native  men  are  working  for  the 
emancipation  of  the  women,  unfortunately,  as 
already  observed,  they  are  persistently  hindered 
in  their  efforts  by  the  opposition  offered  to  their 
programme  of  progress  by  their  unlettered,  re- 
actionary womenfolk;  their  wives,  mothers,  sis- 
ters, and  daughters,  even  their  widowed  female 
relatives,  are  bitterly  opposed  to  this  radical  re- 
form, and  their  combined  power  perpetuates  the 
practice. 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    179 

"  The  last  census  showed  that  997  Muhamma- 
dan  and  995  Hindu  women  per  1,000  were  illit- 
erate in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1900.  What  is 
still  worse  is  the  fact  that  at  present  less  than  one 
per  cent  of  Indian  girls  of  school-going  age  are 
being  educated." 

None  but  a  great  nation  impervious  to  ridi- 
cule could  persist  in  urging  officially  its  civil 
servants  to  ask  their  wives  to  entertain  the  native 
women  with  childish  games,  as  a  mark  of  a  sym- 
pathetic administration.  The  French  or  the 
Americans  would  suffocate  with  laughter  at  the 
suggestion.  This  is  not  sympathy,  this  is  cur- 
dled kindliness.  Just  as  one  ceases  to  be  well 
dressed  when  one  is  noticeably  well  dressed,  so 
friendliness  ceases  to  be  friendliness  when  it  puts 
on  a  uniform  and  advertises  itself.  But  what 
can  you  expect  from  a  nation  whose  minister 
for  war  sends  out  a  solemn  circular  suggesting 
that  the  new  territorial  force  should  assemble 
on  a  convenient  Sunday  to  thank  God  that  they 
had  been  evolved  from  his  brain,  and  that  their 
predecessors  had  ceased  to  exist ;  or  the  even  more 
grotesque  circular,  which  must  certainly  have 
been  suggested  to  Mr.  Haldane  by  a  wag  in  the 
war  office,  but  which  was  nonetheless  sent  out, 
to  the  effect  that  landlords  who  are  heads  of 
territorial    contingents    in    their    neighborhood 


180       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

should  be  granted  permission  to  add  an  un- 
sheathed sword  pointing  upward  to  their  flag,  or 
pointing  downward  when  they  were  no  longer 
in  office  ?  Only  a  ponderous  patriot  could  thus 
offer  himself  for  the  altar  of  the  Abraham  of  ridi- 
cule, on  the  off  chance  that  a  convenient  ram 
would  be  found  in  the  near-by  bushes. 

But  along  the  lines  of  humor  and  sestheticism 
a  nation  that  will  tamely  submit  to  the  Albert 
Memorial  monument  or  to  the  statue  of  Shelley 
at  Oxford,  may  be  expected  to  furnish  ample 
matter  for  amusement.  Heine  wrote  to  a  rich 
uncle  that  there  were  so  many  fools  in  the  world 
that  he  felt  no  fear  of  not  being  able  to  make  a 
living.  He  even  added,  that  he  thought  he  could 
live  on  that  one  uncle  alone.  The  Albert  Me- 
morial alone  would  furnish  a  literary  living  for 
a  life-time. 

The  male  Indian,  both  Hindu  and  Muham- 
madan,  of  course  with  exceptions  among  the  ed- 
ucated, still  looks  upon  women  much  as  Eras- 
mus did:  "Woman  is  an  absurd  and  ridiculous 
animal,  but  entertaining  and  pleasant." 

When  the  Englishman  becomes  self-conscious, 
either  socially  or  morally,  he  is  deplorably  awk- 
ward. There  is  so  much  talk,  so  much  audible 
discontent,  so  much  putting  of  the  old  methods 
of  government   into   the  crucible,  just   now    in 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    181 

India,  that  the  Englishmen  is  beginning  to  won- 
der if  lie  is  right,  if  he  is  justified,  and  this  makes 
for  self-consciousness  and  for  lack  of  confidence, 
and  reacts  upon  the  people.  A  nervous  rider 
makes  a  nervous  horse.  The  Indian  does  not 
understand  that  this  is  the  vacillation  of  con- 
science; he  interprets  it  in  the  one  way  his  ex- 
perience permits  him  to  interpret  it,  as  fear. 
Artificial  sympathy,  pumped-up  cordiality,  as- 
sumed comradeship,  are  no  more  possible  to  the 
average  Englishman  than  trimming  hats,  curling 
hair,  or  dancing  skirt-dances. 

There  is  an  ample  supply  of  honest  comrade- 
ship and  real  sympathy  between  the  British  and 
the  Indian.  I  have  spent  weeks  camping  and 
travelling  with  soldier  and  civil  service  officials. 
Any  man  who  believes  that  there  is  lack  of  sym- 
pathy should  spend  some  time  with  British  offi- 
cers and  their  native  troops ;  with  British  officers 
and  the  Imperial  Service  troops  of  the  native 
princes;  with  commissioners  and  deputy  com- 
missioners doing  their  work  in  the  outlying  dis- 
tricts; or  hear  for  the  first  time  the  Englishman 
"talking  shop"  as  the  British  officer  in  India  will 
do  in  his  enthusiasm  about  his  Gurkhas,  or  his 
Sikhs,  or  his  Patiala  Lancers,  or  his  Bhopal  light 
cavalry.  It  would  be  affectation  on  my  part  to 
say  that  my  experience  is  limited  in  these  matters, 


182       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

for  I  have  ridden  with  our  Western  troopers  many 
a  mile  on  the  plains,  and  only  lately  I  have  seen 
Japanese  cavalry  schools,  Chinese  mountain  bat- 
teries, Argentine  cavalry,  English  soldiering  at 
home,  and  nowhere  in  the  world,  I  maintain,  will 
you  find  better  feeling  between  officers  and  men 
than  in  India.  This  is  the  sympathy  that  one 
need  not  be  ashamed  of,  and  which  counts;  while 
the  tea-cake  variety  is  merely  the  doctrinaire 
philanthropy  of  parochial  officialdom. 

When  one  reads  a  leaflet  recently  distributed 
in  Bengal  signed  "Editor,"  and  with  the  follow- 
ing postscript:  "The  editor  will  be  extremely 
obliged  to  readers  if  they  will  translate  into  all 
languages  and  circulate  broadcast,"  and  which 
runs  as  follows:  "Sacrifice  white  blood  undiluted 
and  pure  at  the  call  of  your  god  on  the  altar  of 
freedom.  The  bones  of  the  martyrs  cry  out  for 
vengeance,  and  you  will  be  traitors  to  your  coun- 
try if  you  do  not  adequately  respond  to  the  call. 
Whites,  be  thev  men,  women,  or  children  — 
murder  them  indiscriminately,  and  you  will  not 
commit  any  sin;"  when  one  reads  this,  rubbish 
though  it  be,  and  remembers  the  ignorance  and 
prejudice  of  those  who  read  it  and  those  to 
whom  it  is  read,  the  sheltered  humanitarianism 
of  the  India  Office  seems  very  afternoon-teay 
indeed.     "His    heart    swelled,"    writes    Balzac, 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    183 

"with  that  dull  collected  love  which  we  must  call 
humanitarianism,  the  eldest  son  of  deceased  phi- 
lanthropy, and  which  is  to  the  divine  charity 
what  system  is  to  art,  or  reasoning  to  deed." 

Sympathy  is  the  catch-word  in  India  just  now. 
One  hears  it  suggested  on  every  hand  as  the 
remedy  for  unrest.  The  kindly  feeling  for,  and 
the  understanding  of,  another's  temperament, 
wThich  makes  for  sympathy,  curdles  when  it  is 
forced.  I  remember  a  Sunday-school  of  my  boy- 
hood days,  where  a  class  of  small  boys  sat  in  a 
circle  around  their  teacher.  The  superintendent 
was  leading  in  prayer.  One  of  the  small  boys 
was  gazing  about  the  room.  I  even  remember 
that  boy's  name:  Crosby.  His  teacher  saw  his 
inattention  and  whispered  to  him  fiercely:  "Cros- 
by, now  you  pray!"  Through  many  years  that 
scene  has  been  a  picture  to  me  of  the  folly  of  at- 
tempting to  enforce  spiritual  laws.  The  present 
situation  is  not  less  ridiculous.  India  kept  in 
hand  by  a  small  party,  mostly  of  young  men  in 
the  army  and  the  civil  service;  sport-loving, 
wholesome,  unaffected,  with  no  thought,  most 
of  them,  of  artifice  in  their  manners  or  their 
methods,  in  very  many  cases  adored  by  their 
men,  and  of  a  sudden  one  hears  the  voice  of 
inexperience,  of  theoretical  enthusiasm,  saying: 
"Now,  you  fellows,  sympathize!"  and  they  prob- 


184       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

ably  sympathize  the  way  Crosby  prayed,  and 
they  would  be  fools  indeed  if  they  did  anything 
else. 

There  is  no  cleaner,  healthier,  better-managed 
colony  in  the  world  than  Java,  and  we  do  not 
consider  the  Dutch  to  be  either  imaginative  or 
sympathetic.  A  man  may  be  fond  of  children, 
and  not  care  to  take  his  meals  with  them  in  the 
nursery,  or  to  give  them  the  run  of  his  study,  or 
take  them  to  lunch  at  his  club,  or  to  have  them 
camp  every  night  in  his  bedroom. 

Sir  Richard  Burton,  who  knew  the  ins  and 
outs  of  the  Oriental  mind  if  anybody  ever  did, 
does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  natives  of  India 
cannot  even  respect  a  European  who  mixes  with 
them. 

The  old  wholesome  theory  that  the  inferior 
should  be  urged  to  play  up,  and  be  rewarded  if 
he  did,  made  us  Americans  and  English  what 
we  are;  the  modern  theory,  born  of  the  miasma 
of  the  French  Revolution,  urging  the  superior 
to  play  down,  will  emasculate  us  inevitably. 

I  fail  to  see  any  signs,  at  home  or  abroad,  that 
the  coy  but  nonetheless  calculating  professional 
philanthropy  of  the  day  has  brought  about,  or  is 
on  the  way  to  do  so,  a  better  feeling  between  men. 
We  are  producing  artificial  relations  between  men 
in  a  hot-house,  and  when  they  are  bedded  out 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    185 

to  grow,  in  the  competition  and  strife  and  tur- 
moil of  all  weathers  and  temperatures  with  which 
life  assails  them,  they  wilt  even  more  quickly 
than  before  they  were  so  carefully  tended.  If 
you  feel  your  pulse,  or  watch  your  breathing, 
or  ponder  overmuch  about  your  digestion,  your 
pulse  and  your  breathing  become  irregular,  and 
your  digestion  goes  wrong.  Try  it  and  see.  Cer- 
tain human  functions  are,  and  must  be,  auto- 
matic; they  are  so  sensitive  that  the  least  inter- 
ference with  them,  even  thinking  about  them, 
will  disarrange  them.  Certain  of  the  relations 
between  men,  whether  in  India  or  in  the  negro 
belt  in  America,  or  in  the  squalid  quarters  of  the 
poor  in  NewT  York  or  in  London,  are  of  that  kind. 
If  I  may  be  permitted  to  use  a  personal  illustra- 
tion, I  cite  my  own  liking  for  the  negro.  I  come 
from  his  country,  my  family  has  for  many  scores 
of  years  dealt  with  him  and  served  him,  as  he 
has  served  them.  I  could  no  more  pump  up 
this  feeling  of  understanding  and  sympathy,  and 
ability  to  get  on  with  him,  than  I  could  think  my- 
self into  being  a  painter,  or  urge  or  excite  myself 
into  being  six  feet  and  four  inches  high.  It  may 
be  asked,  then,  if  the  writer  is  utterly  contempt- 
uous of  kindly  human  feeling.  No  one  less  so. 
It  is  the  attempt  to  solve  the  inevitable  problems 
of  economic  and  governmental  conditions  that 


186       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

are  necessarily  artificial,  by  an  assumption  of 
artificial  temperament  and  manners,  that  is  con- 
demned. 

Civilization  in  India,  and  in  every  great  com- 
mercial and  political  centre  of  the  world  to-day, 
is  distorted  by  the  political  and  economic  exi- 
gencies of  great  aggregations  of  population,  fed, 
clothed,  and  housed  by  machinery  instead  of  by 
the  individual  labor  of  each  one.  If  all  the  ma- 
chinery in  the  world  to-day  in  the  cotton,  corn, 
and  wheat  fields,  in  the  mines,  in  the  great  manu- 
factories, in  the  transportation  agencies,  in  all 
the  branches  which  feed,  clothe,  house,  water, 
and  carry  us,  were  suddenly  to  become  useless, 
and  could  not  be  repaired;  if  our  own  railroads 
were  to  be  hampered  by  excitable  legislation— if, 
in  short,  with  our  present  aggregations  of  popu- 
lation we  were  obliged  to  revert  to  the  methods 
of  even  one  hundred  years  ago,  what  awful 
plague,  famine,  and  death  would  follow!  This 
means  that  vast  populations  are  existing  to-day 
by  the  grace  of  machinery,  and  not  by  virtue  of 
their  own  prowess,  and  practically  every  social 
problem  of  the  day  arises  from  that  and  nothing 
else.  We  are  all,  more  or  less,  living  upon  char- 
ity, except  the  farmer,  and  not  by  the  exertion 
of  our  natural  and  elementary  forces;  and  it  is 
only  the  strong-willed  and  the  stout-hearted  who 


FROM  MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    187 

do  not  deteriorate  in  consequence.  Those  who 
see  this  may  be  forgiven  for  not  only  believ- 
ing, but  knowing,  that  more  philanthropy,  that 
more  artificial  sympathy,  only  make  matters 
worse. 

Modern  ingenuity  and  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  hygiene,  have  brought  this  enormous  brood 
into  the  world,  and  we  now  propose  to  smile  and 
smooth  it  into  contentment.  One  might  as  well 
attempt  to  bring  up  one's  children  on  the  sugar- 
coating  of  one's  wedding  cake. 

It  is  stated  that  the  average  length  of  human 
life  in  European  countries,  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, was  between  eighteen  and  twenty  years. 
To-day  it  is  between  forty  and  fifty  years.  The 
death-rate  has  fallen  as  man's  life  has  lengthened. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  the  mortality  rate  of 
London  was  50  per  1,000  of  population;  to-day 
it  is  15  per  1,000  of  population.  In  the  year 
1700  the  mortality  rate  of  Boston  was  34  per 
1,000;  to-day  it  is  19.  Within  a  century, 
London,  Berlin,  and  Munich  have  cut  their 
death-rates  nearly  in  half.  In  Sweden,  the 
home  of  school  gymnastics  and  government- 
controlled  hygiene,  the  average  length  of  life 
is  50  years  for  men,  and  53  years  for  women, 
the  highest  in  the  world.  In  the  United  States, 
the  average  lifetime  is  44  for  men,  and  46  for 


188       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

women.  In  India  the  average  lifetime  for  men 
is  23,  and  for  women  24.  It  is  almost  impossible 
to  calculate  the  enormous  increase  of  population 
that  these  figures  suggest;  and  an  increase  of  the 
number  of  men  and  women  in  the  world  of  ma- 
ture years,  whose  demands  upon  life  for  food, 
for  occupation,  for  education,  for  amusement, 
and  for  governing  are  the  demands  of  grown-up 
people.  This  single  problem  of  the  increase  of 
the  grown-up  population  of  the  world  in  the  last 
two  hundred  years  is  never  mentioned;  and  yet 
it  is  outstanding,  ever  growing,  all-else-includ- 
ing, and  as  much  more  overshadowing  all  other 
problems  of  civilization  as  the  sky  compared  to 
tents.  To  imagine  that  this  greatest  problem  of 
our  time,  perhaps  of  any  time,  is  to  be  solved  by 
doles  of  money,  smiles,  and  words,  is  not  only 
ridiculous  as  theory,  but  is  proving  itself  deplor- 
able as  practice.  Wherever  else  the  way  out  of 
the  tangle  lies,  it  is  not  there.  To  issue  orders 
for  purdah  parties,  and  for  bows  and  smiles  on 
railway  trains,  makes  one  doubt  the  lucid  writ- 
ing, the  clear  thinking,  the  masterly  grasp  of  great 
problems,  for  which  I  for  one  have  admired  and 
extolled  John  Morley  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  It  is  not  only  no  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem in  itself,  but  it  is  tempting  the  unthinking 
and   superficial  to  believe  that  the  problem  is 


FROM   MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    189 

only  as  difficult  as  the  suggestion  of  such  sickly 
remedies  implies. 

India  has  a  negligible  amount  of  machinery, 
and  an  overwhelming  population,  consequently 
the  problem  is  more  acute  there  than  elsewhere; 
but  it  exists  in  Germany  and  in  Japan,  and  while 
it  is  called  "Unrest"  in  India,  it  is  called  the 
"German  Peril"  in  Europe,  the  "Japanese 
Peril"  in  America.  In  addition  to  this  machine- 
made  population,  there  has  grown  w7ith  advanc- 
ing civilization  and  its  wealth,  a  fashion  of  re- 
lieving women  of  all  share  in  productive  labor. 
America  and  England,  for  example,  carry,  in- 
dustrially speaking,  an  enormous  weight  of  idle 
women,  the  most  idle  and  luxurious  of  whom  do 
not  even  bear  children,  and  who  are  the  direct 
incentive  to  extravagance  and  waste.  Fortu- 
nately they  are  comparatively  few  in  number,  but 
they  are  nevertheless  a  factor  in  the  problem. 
Let  us  be  frank,  therefore,  and  say  at  once  that 
"Unrest"  in  India  is  not  an  exotic  among  social 
and  economic  problems,  it  is  a  phase,  an  Ori- 
ental phase,  if  you  please,  which  presses  upon 
every  country  in  the  world,  less  in  the  United 
States  and  in  South  America  than  elsewhere 
merely  because  we  have  the  food  supply  of  the 
world  in  our  hands. 

Manufactured  sympathy  will  solve  the  prob- 


190       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

lem  neither  in  India  nor  anywhere  else.  On 
the  contrary  the  unthinking  philanthropist, 
and  the  cunning  politician,  not  only  in  India, 
but  in  England,  Germany,  France,  and  Amer- 
ica, are  leading  whole  populations  to  believe 
that  the  millions  concentrated  in  a  few  hands 
are  the  cause  of  the  poverty  and  discomfort 
of  all  the  rest.  There  never  was  a  meaner 
nor  a  more  dangerous  lie:  first,  because  it 
tickles  the  fancy  of  the  people,  second,  be- 
cause it  leads  them  in  a  wrong  direction  for  the 
solution  of  their  troubles,  and  third,  because  it 
is  these  very  aggregations  of  capital  that  alone 
make  it  possible  even  to  feed  these  masses  of  pop- 
ulation. Like  every  other  remedy  for  human  ills, 
if  it  be  easy  and  pleasant  you  may  be  sure  it  is 
poisonous.  There  are  room,  and  food,  and  leis- 
ure, and  opportunity  for  every  honest,  sober,  hard- 
working man  in  the  world,  still,  whatever  the 
future  have  in  store  for  the  rapidly  increasing 
population  of  the  world;  but  the  mill  of  competi- 
tion is  growing  more  and  more  terrible  as  modern 
science  fosters  the  growth  of  population,  and  the 
shiftless,  the  dissipated,  and  the  weak  find  it 
harder  and  harder  to  keep  on  the  road,  and  out  of 
the  gutter,  as  the  road  becomes  more  and  more 
crowded.  "Neither  circumcision  nor  uncircum- 
cision  availeth  anything,  but  a  new  man!"     The 


FROM  MUGHAL  TO   BRITON    191 

ghastly  gospel  which  preaches  that  all  our  woes 
are  due  to  somebody  else,  and  the  demagogic 
apostles  of  that  gospel,  will,  and  can,  only  land 
their  followers  in  a  deeper  ditch.  Sympathy, 
yes,  but  easy  lies,  never.  The  slightest  move  in 
this  direction,  the  faintest  whisper  to  these  three 
hundred  millions  in  India,  would  be  on  a  par, 
for  fiendish  cruelty,  with  persuading  the  chil- 
dren of  a  family  that  all  their  woes  were  due  to 
the  selfishness  of  their  parents. 


V 

RELIGION  AND   CASTE   IN  INDIA 

IN  writing  a  chapter  on  religion  and  caste  in 
India,  as  I  have  seen  it,  I  wisli  to  begin  by 
proclaiming  how  superficial  this  sketch  must 
be,  and  how  well  I  know  what  I  do  not  know  of 
a  subject  to  which  many  volumes  have  been  de- 
voted by  students  of  many  years'  residence  in  In- 
dia, and  for  a  full  analysis  and  history  of  which 
many  volumes  are  still  needed. 

I  am  proposing  merely  to  furnish  enough  mate- 
rial to  put  the  situation  before  my  countrymen, 
and  to  show  how  ludicrous  is  the  ideal  of  self- 
government,  as  we  understand  it,  for  a  people 
so  unhomogeneous,  and  how  calamitous  will  be 
the  result  of  going  too  fast  in  granting  legislative 
privileges. 

First  of  all,  caste  is  a  question  of  birth,  and 
there  is  no  entry  except  by  birth.  A  worker  in 
a  coal-mine  may  become  a  part  owner  thereof, 
and  his  daughter  marry  a  peer,  and  his  grand- 
son become  a  peer  in  England.  I  can  personally 
introduce   the   reader  to  dozens  of  still  unedu- 

192 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  193 

cated  clerks,  stenographers,  mill-hands,  newsboys, 
and  their  wives,  widows,  sisters,  and  daughters, 
whose  millions  seat  them  at  the  dinner-tables  of 
the  Brahman  class  in  America  and  in  England. 
But  no  millions  will  enable  a  low-caste  Hindu 
to  marry  into  a  Brahman  family,  or  even  to 
touch  the  hand,  or  throw  his  shadow  on  the 
food,  of  a  Brahman  in  India. 

If  a  man  is  excommunicated  by  his  caste  fel- 
lows in  India,  no  one  of  the  caste  will  eat  with 
him,  accept  water  from  his  hands,  or  marry  him. 
His  own  wife  will  not  touch  him  or  speak  with 
him.  He  is  dead  to  his  family.  The  barber 
even  will  not  shave  him,  or  cut  his  hair  or  his 
toe-nails. 

There  is  no  legislation,  no  police  work,  no 
trial  in  the  courts,  no  adjustment  of  land  rev- 
enue or  land  tenure,  no  meeting  of  municipal  or 
district  councils,  no  appointment  to  office  small 
or  great,  no  handling  of  any  community  in  time 
of  plague  or  famine,  no  hygienic  precautions  or 
sanitary  arrangements,  into  which  does  not  enter 
this  question  of  caste  to  complicate,  to  make  diffi- 
cult, and  perhaps  to  foil,  the  most  reasonable  and 
necessary  work  of  the  administrator.  A  Brah- 
man clerk  has  been  known  to  distribute  legal 
documents  by  throwing  them  down  at  the  end 
of  the  village  street   in  which  live  his  low-caste 


194       THE   WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

brethren.  Letter-carriers  have  been  known  to 
refuse  to  enter  the  houses  of,  or  to  permit  them- 
selves to  come  into  personal  contact  with,  those 
of  a  lower  status  than  themselves. 

If  one  could  picture  to  oneself  social  snobbery 
lifted  into  a  fanatical  religious  faith,  it  would 
be  a  pale  description  of  the  iron  subdivisions  of 
caste  in  India,  but  even  then  simple  as  compared 
with  the  incomprehensible  intricacies  of  this  so- 
cial pall.  There  is  no  patriotism,  and  can  be 
none,  in  a  country  thus  divided  against  itself, 
and  divided  against  itself  not  geographically  but 
socially. 

As  I  watch  for  hours  at  a  time  the  worshippers 
at  the  Ghats,  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges  at 
Benares,  I  only  find  myself  more  puzzled.  It  is 
more  than  complicated,  it  is  cloudy  confusion, 
wherein  one  loses  the  support  even  of  one's  or- 
dinary mental  and  physical  working  powers. 

Benares  has  been  the  capital  of  the  Hindu  re- 
ligion for  more  years  than  any  historian  has 
counted.  Buddha,  who  was  born  about  557  and 
who  died  about  478  B.  C,  began  his  public  teach- 
ing in  the  deer-forest  near  what  was  even  then 
the  great  city  of  Benares.  For  nearly  two  thou- 
sand five  hundred  years,  of  which  we  have  some 
knowledge,  and  for  how  many  years  more  no  man 
knows,  the  Hindus  have  bathed  and  prayed  here 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  195 

on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges.  Buddhism  and 
Islamism  have  been  absorbed  or  swept  aside. 

It  must  be  said  of  Buddhism,  however,  that 
it  has  left  one  indelible  mark  all  over  India, 
China,  and  the  East,  and  that  is  the  teaching  of 
gentleness  and  kindness  to  one  another  and  to 
animals.  Buddha  taught  that  life  is  but  a  pro- 
longed endeavor  to  escape  from  suffering,  and 
that,  therefore,  to  cause  others  to  suffer  is  the  un- 
forgivable sin.  By  meditation  a  man  is  to  lose 
the  sense  of  the  painfulness  of  life,  and  to  earn 
some  mitigation  from  the  cycle  through  which 
he  must  pass  before  reaching  Nirvana,  where  all 
re-birth  ends  at  last,  and  one  loses  consciousness 
forever.  This  creed  is  pure  agnosticism,  holding 
that  a  man's  own  acts  alone  make  up  the  tale  of 
his  faith. 

Agnosticism  evervwhere  throws  a  man  back 
upon  himself,  and  everywhere  and  always  pro- 
duces one  of  two  results.  It  makes  men,  as  in 
India  and  China,  pessimists,  hopeless,  helpless, 
and  without  ambitions  for  either  their  souls  or 
their  bodies;  or  it  makes  men  colossal  egoists  who 
worship  themselves.  Nothing  can  be  more  por- 
tentous of  evil  to  the  race  than  our  agnostic  de- 
mocracies of  the  West,  which  are  putting  man  on 
a  pedestal,  and  waving  the  incense  of  eight  hours' 
work,  old-age  pensions,  no  conscription,  a  vote 


196       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

for  each  adult,  state  support,  and  so  on,  before 
him. 

It  was  a  moving  spectacle,  for  example,  to  all 
students  of  the  ethnic  religions  when  Mr.  Keir 
Hardie,  as  the  exponent  of  Western  agnosticism, 
or  man  as  his  own  god,  came  out  to  India  to 
preach  this  doctrine  to  the  Buddhist-impreg- 
nated Indians,  steeped  in  pessimism.  They  im- 
mediately dubbed  him  the  "King  of  the  Cool- 
ies" and  could  not  wrench  their  imaginations  to 
see  how  a  man  of  no  caste  could  be  worth  imi- 
tating or  following.  The  first  flash  of  a  picture 
of  that  which  will  some  day  be  a  terrible  conflict 
between  the  Yellow  and  the  White  was  revealed 
when  the  man  who  cared  everything  for  man 
met  the  men  who  care  nothing  for  man,  and 
neither  understood  the  other  in  the  least. 

Buddhism  has  done  for  the  East  what  ration- 
alism has  done  for  the  West;  it  makes  men  doubt 
the  existence,  even  deny  the  existence,  of  any 
power  higher  than  themselves,  but  with  the  abys- 
mal difference  that  it  prostrates  man  in  the  East 
while  it  puts  him  on  a  dangerous  pinnacle  in  the 
West.  Man  with  nothing  higher  than  himself 
to  obey,  to  fear,  to  love,  or  to  placate,  becomes 
morally  and  mentally  disorderly.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  state,  which  brings  itself  to  the  con- 
dition where  the  voting  man  is  paramount,  and 


RELIGION   AND    CASTE  197 

to  be  feared,  obeyed,  and  placated.  With  no 
higher  ideal  than  that,  a  state  disintegrates,  drifts 
into  bureaucracy,  then  into  pensionism,  finally 
into  the  bread-and-circus  stage,  and  then  disap- 
pears. Such  a  failure  was  Athens,  such  a  fail- 
ure is  before  our  eyes  in  modern  France,  France 
the  land  of  pose  and  phrase,  egotism  and  scepti- 
cism. Even  the  ethical  code  of  agnosticism 
fades  and  dies,  lacking  a  higher  sanction  to 
command  obedience. 

Buddha  little  thought  that  his  teaching  of  the 
valuelessness  of  life  would  result  in  the  callous 
cruelty  of  the  Indian  and  the  Chinese.  Rous- 
seau, if  he  thought  about  it  at  all,  could  hardly 
have  dreamed  that  his  scheme  of  a  return  to  the 
simple  and  the  natural  life,  with  every  man  equal, 
would  make  of  France  a  shambles,  and  produce 
a  philosophy  of  life  which,  while  attempting  to 
gain  the  whole  world  for  each  individual,  not 
only  loses  its  soul,  but  loses  the  whole  world,  for 
every  body  of  individuals  which  attempts  it. 
The  time  is  still  aeons  off  when  each  man  may 
be  his  own  master.  It  is  a  pitiable  failure  in 
the  East.  It  will  prove  a  colossal  failure  in  the 
West. 

Curiously  enough,  it  was  King  Asoka,  nick- 
named "The  Furious"  in  his  youth,  who,  in  260 
B.  C,  became  the  great  apostle  and  missionary 


198        THE   WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

of  Buddhism.  The  lives  he  had  taken,  the  suf- 
fering he  had  caused,  in  the  days  of  his  auto- 
cratic sway,  led  him  to  find  comfort  and  repent- 
ance in  a  creed  which  abhorred  the  taking  of  life. 
It  was  through  his  influence  and  the  influence 
of  his  saffron-robed  priests,  of  whom  he  is  said 
to  have  supported  forty  thousand  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, that  Buddhism  grew  from  a  mere  sect 
of  enthusiasts  into  the  creed  of  a  third  of  the 
human  race,  and  spread  through  Asia  and 
parts  of  Africa  and  Europe.  The  Brahmanism 
of  Benares  is  partly  the  result  of  this  wave  of 
Buddhism.  It  is  a  gentle,  mannerly,  soft- 
spoken  crowd,  absorbed  in  forgetting  that  it 
lives.  This  carelessness  of  life,  on  the  other 
hand,  breaks  out  in  monstrous  slaughter  and 
sickening  brutalities,  as  in  the  Mutiny,  when  it 
loses  control  of  itself.  The  Mutiny  was  a  pict- 
ure of  pessimism  let  loose;  the  French  Revolu- 
tion was  a  picture  of  how  rationalism  establishes 
the  rights  of  man,  or  in  the  happy  phrase  of  that 
most  skilful  and  most  brilliant  modern  political 
diagnostician,  Lord  Rosebery,  "the  fierce  equal- 
ity of  France." 

Benares  at  the  present  time,  so  far  as  buildings 
are  concerned,  is  of  the  most  modern.  The  idol- 
breaking  Muhammadans  left  nothing  after  their 
conquering  of  the  city  except  a  spiteful  mosque, 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  199 

built  by  the  fanatical  Aurangzeb  on  one  of  the 
sacred  sites,  which  still  rears  its  towers  above  all 
the  other  buildings  on  the  river  bank;  and  there 
are  few  buildings  of  an  earlier  date  than  the  mid- 
dle of  the  eighteenth  century.  But  the  Ganges 
has  never  been  conquered,  nor  turned  aside,  nor 
has  the  Hindu  faith. 

They  are  here  by  the  thousands  this  morning, 
washing  themselves,  washing  their  clothes,  sit- 
ting wrapt  in  contemplation  some  of  them,  only 
their  lips  moving.  Old  and  young,  men  and 
women,  all  bathing,  and  in  curiously  decent  fash- 
ion. Their  arrangement  of  clothing  must  be  pe- 
culiar, for  they  undress,  and  dress,  and  bathe, 
and  somehow  each  one  so  manages  his  or  her 
clothing  that  there  is  not  a  hint  of  indecency  or 
even  of  immodesty.  You  are  rowed  along  with- 
in a  few  feet  of  the  bank  of  the  river  where  these 
thousands  are  bathing,  drying  themselves,  dress- 
ing and  undressing,  and  nothing  could  be  more 
sedately  proper.  You  see  the  Brahman  rub- 
bing his  sacred  triple  thread  round  and  round 
his  shoulder  and  body,  others  scrubbing  their 
mouths  violently  with  their  fingers,  others  wash- 
ing their  clothes,  babies  being  dipped  by  father 
or  mother,  and  soundly  rubbed  afterward,  youths 
more  particular,  using  combs;  and  higher  up  on 
the  bank  the  barbers  are  busy,  shaving  and  cut- 


200       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

ting  hair,  while  the  customer  sits  cross-legged, 
holding  a  mirror. 

Even  my  travelled  Brahman  friend,  who  told 
me  that  he  was  what  we  would  call  a  Unitarian, 
wore,  and  showed  me,  his  sacred  thread.  The 
Rajput  father  binds  round  the  arm  of  his  son  a 
string  made  of  a  sacred  grass  which  is  to  ward  off 
evil  spirits.  No  doubt  the  sacred  cord  of  the 
twice-born  castes  of  India  originated  in  a  simi- 
lar belief.  The  cord  is  made  in  various  ways. 
"Among  the  Madras  Brahmans,  who  are  most 
careful  in  such  matters,  it  is  of  fine  country- 
grown  cotton,  not  foreign,  and  spun  by  hand. 
Three  very  fine  threads  are  twisted  by  a  Brah- 
man into  a  single  cord  sixteen  feet  long.  He  then 
squats  on  the  ground,  winds  it  thrice  around  his 
knees,  and  fastens  the  ends  in  a  special  knot 
known  as  that  of  Brahma."  In  the  north,  the 
four  fingers  of  the  hand  are  closed,  and  a  thread 
is  wound  back  and  fourth  over  them  ninety-six 
times.  This  thread  forms  one  strand  of  the  cord, 
and  three  of  them  make  it  complete.  During 
worship  of  the  gods  it  remains  over  the  left  shoul- 
der; when  the  wearer  is  unclean,  or  when  he  per- 
forms the  rites  for  the  dead,  he  shifts  it  to  the 
right  shoulder. 

The  thread  is  put  on  a  boy  between  his  eighth 
and  twelfth  year,  when  he  is  supposed  to  assume 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  201 

the  religious  obligations  and  the  authority  and 
duty  of  a  Brahman.  When  the  thread  is  first 
put  on  the  boy  he  makes  pretence  of  leaving  the 
house  to  become  an  ascetic,  but  he  is,  of  course, 
persuaded  to  return  and  live  as  a  layman. 

It  seemed  to  me  strange  that  there  was  no 
swimming.  In  any  Western  crowd  there  would 
have  been  scores  of  boys  and  men  diving,  swim- 
ming, playing  games  in  the  water;  but  there  is 
no  sign  of  any  desire  for  exercise  or  play  here. 
Rubbing  themselves,  thrashing  their  clothes  on 
the  flat  rocks,  moving  their  lips  and  hands  in 
prayer,  but  no  other  exercise. 

They  are  a  sitting,  riding  race,  not  a  walking 
or  running  one.  Their  posture  is  as  peculiar 
to  them  as  their  color.  It  is  always  the  same, 
wherever  you  see  them,  whether  it  be  the  prince 
in  his  palace,  these  people  praying  by  the  river- 
bank,  the  passengers  waiting  for  the  train  at  the 
railway  stations,  or  sitting  on  the  seats  in  the 
train,  your  bearer  waiting  outside  your  door,  or 
the  cab-driver  on  his  box  in  the  great  cities.  The 
hinges  in  their  knees  must  be  different  from  ours. 
They  squat  down  with  their  knee-caps  under 
their  chins,  and  that  part  of  their  persons  which 
the  French  describe  as  oil  le  dos  change  de  nom 
close  up  against  their  heels.  I  was  told  at  Udai- 
pur  that  His  Highness,  the  Maharana  of  Udaipur, 


202       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

has  no  chairs  in  his  private  apartments,  but  al- 
ways sits  cross-legged  on  the  floor,  whether  to  eat, 
or  to  read,  or  to  rest.  When  you  return  to  your  cab 
you  will  find  the  driver  almost  invariably  perched 
up  on  the  seat  with  his  legs  under  him.  Thou- 
sands of  years  of  chairlessness  have  made  this 
the  most  comfortable  posture  for  them.  I  sup- 
pose in  a  country  of  three  hundred  millions  of 
people  there  is  only  room  for  them  to  sit  on  the 
ground,  and,  at  any  rate,  among  these  people 
there  is  no  money  to  provide  any  piece  of  furni- 
ture which  is,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  so  con- 
venient to  carry,  and  so  cheaply  upholstered,  as 
that  part  of  the  person,  oil  Ic  dos  change  de  nom! 
Benares  is  evidently  a  cosmopolitan  place;  you 
notice  the  difference  in  the  people  as  you  drive 
or  walk  through  the  streets.  They  are  less  shy. 
the  women  do  not  cover  their  faces  so  care- 
fully, they  are  more  accustomed  to  strangers,  and 
well  they  may  be,  since  it  is  estimated  that  there 
are  a  million  pilgrims  here  every  year,  who  come 
to  bathe,  to  pray,  and  to  take  the  long,  dusty 
walk,  or  pilgrimage,  of  some  forty-five  miles, 
around  the  sacred  precincts  of  the  city.  Into  the 
sacred  waters  of  the  Ganges,  too.  every  Hindu 
wishes  his  ashes  thrown.  At  one  of  the  Ghats  on 
the  bank  I  saw  bodies  burning,  and  others  lying- 
waiting  to  be  burned. 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  203 

Both  here  and  at  Bombay  I  have  been  present 
at  these  burnings.  The  bodies  are  brought  in 
on  a  frail  litter.  A  pile  of  logs  is  built  up,  held 
in  place  by  four  iron  stanchions.  The  body 
with  the  head  uncovered  is  placed  on  the  logs, 
more  logs  are  piled  on  top,  the  litter  is  broken 
up  and  added  to  the  small  fagots  underneath,  and 
the  fire  is  lighted.  There  are  various  ceremo- 
nies connected  with  the  rite.  The  body  is  car- 
ried several  times  around  the  pile  before  being 
placed  upon  it.  The  nearest  relative  walks 
around  the  pile  with  a  jar  of  water,  letting  it  drip 
down  as  he  goes,  till  of  a  sudden  he  dashes  the 
jar  to  the  ground,  breaking  it  to  pieces.  A  sym- 
bol of  all  life,  everywhere.  At  a  certain  mo- 
ment, too,  the  skull  is  fractured  by  the  nearest 
relative,  to  allow  the  easy  escape  of  the  spirit  to 
another  world.  Where  the  deceased  is  rich,  the 
fire  is  made  of  costly  and  sweet-smelling  wood, 
sandal-wood  and  the  like,  and  the  ceremonies 
are  more  elaborate  and  more  prolonged.  No 
doubt  it  is  the  ideal  way  to  dispose  of  a  dead 
body,  but  when  I  have  seen  it  done  here  it 
seemed  to  me  a  callous  and  a  careless  rite. 

It  is  true,  if  one  have  faith  death  should  not  be 
a  cause  of  mourning,  but  parting  from  those  one 
adores  is  a  poignant  sorrow,  even  if  there  is  to  be 
another  meeting  here  on  earth.     So  far  as  I  have 


204       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

studied  the  faces  of  mourners  here,  I  could  see 
nothing.  In  these  matters  they  are  either  be- 
hind or  very  far  in  advance  of  us.  No  doubt 
Mrs.  Annie  Besant,  who  has  her  Hindu  College 
here  at  Benares,  and  her  Theosophical  Institu- 
tion at  Adyar  near  Madras,  would  maintain  the 
latter.  She  and  her  former  associates  Colonel 
Olcott  and  Madame  Blavatsky  preach  the  su- 
periority of  the  Hindu  system  to  any  philosophy 
or  religion  of  the  West.  One  cannot  perhaps 
curtail  the  freedom  of  speech  of  these  people, 
but  they  can  hardly  be  accepted  as  scholarly 
authorities  in  the  study  of  the  ethnic  religions. 
It  would  be  a  useful  addition  to  the  curriculum 
of  one  of  our  great  universities  if  there  could  be 
lectures  on  applied  ethnic  religions,  as  there  are 
lectures  on  applied  ethics.  I  have  noticed  all 
over  India  the  absolute  indifference  of  the  natives 
themselves  to  the  pain,  and  deformities  and  mal- 
adies that  are  displayed  as  an  excuse  for  alms. 
It  is  not  the  stoicism  of  our  Western  Indians  who 
thought  it  dishonorable  to  show  fear,  or  to  shrink 
from  pain,  but  an  imbedded  indifference,  a 
numbness  to  this  particular  influence.  We,  on 
the  contrary,  dislike  the  sight  of  these  things,  and 
turn  from  them,  and  pity  is  forced  from  us,  but 
all  such  spectacles  seem  to  pass  absolutely  un- 
noticed by  the  Oriental.     And  what  horrible  de- 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  205 

formities  are  exhibited!  One  might  think  them 
invented  and  carved,  so  hideously  grotesque  are 
they  sometimes. 

It  is  a  wonder  there  are  not  more.  A  wonder, 
too,  that  there  is  not  more  plague,  more  cholera, 
more  disease  of  every  kind.  Here  on  the  banks 
of  this  river  are  thousands,  bathing,  washing 
their  clothes,  and  drinking,  all  within  a  few 
yards  of  one  another.  One  man  drinks  the 
dregs  from  another  man's  body,  another  the 
scourings  from  another's  clothes,  and  women 
and  children  the  same.  It  is  not  strange  that 
India  is  the  paradise  of  contagion. 

I  have  heard  it  maintained  that  the  Ganges, 
which  is  the  most  bathed-in  river  in  the  world, 
is  different  from  other  rivers,  in  that  the  water 
itself  has  certain  antiseptic  qualities,  and  that 
microbes  do  not  flourish  in  it  as  in  other  waters. 
If  one  rows  up  and  down  the  river  front,  or  walks 
through  the  narrow  streets  leading  to  the  river, 
the  stench  and  mud  and  crowds  make  it  appear 
a  very  incubator  of  microbes. 

I  stood  for  a  long  time  within  a  small  court, 
in  the  middle  of  which  was  a  much-frequented 
temple.  Cows  stood  about  in  their  own  filth, 
men,  women,  and  children  crowded  in,  went  to 
the  shrine  where  they  bowed  and  prayed,  and 
were  given  something  by  the  attendant,  or  priest, 


206        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

which  they  popped  into  their  mouths.  Some 
came  away  with  garlands,  but  all  of  them  evi- 
dently impervious  to  the  smells  and  the  mud.  It 
was  warm  outside,  but  in  this  particular  tem- 
ple the  smell  of  hot  humanity,  and  hot  cow,  was 
sickening. 

Nor  Mecca,  nor  Jerusalem  has  known  such 
hordes  of  worshippers,  so  many  thousands  of 
years  of  continuous  pilgrimage.  No  matter 
what  his  caste,  no  matter  what  his  occupation,  no 
matter  how  black  his  heart  or  red  his  hands,  the 
Hindu  who  dies  within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles  of 
Benares  is  spared  all  future  torment,  so  it  is  said. 

In  the  theory  of  the  transmigration  of  souls, 
or  metempsychosis,  the  Hindu  believes  that  there 
are  some  millions  of  species  of  animals  that  he 
may  be  obliged  to  pass  through,  one  after  an- 
other, before  he  arrives  at  the  house  of  his  god, 
if  he  does  not  pay  due  attention  to  the  duties  and 
formalities  of  his  religion.  This  saving  of  one's 
own  soul  becomes  a  very  important  business  un- 
der these  circumstances.  The  hell  of  the  most 
enthusiastic  revivalist  is  a  very  lukewarm  affair 
when  compared  with  this  interminable  vista  of 
animal  impersonations  which  confronts  the  pious 
Hindu. 

The  upper  classes  and  intelligent  Hindus  have 
become  Theists,  but  the  mass  of  the  Hindu  world 


RELIGION  AND   CASTE  207 

are  crass  Polytheists,  who  worship  not  only  end- 
less named  gods,  but  sticks  and  stones,  and  trees, 
and  mounds  of  earth  of  their  own  choosing  and 
making.  On  one  occasion  I  asked  a  lower-caste 
Hindu,  who  had  been  very  attentive  in  his  ser- 
vice, if  I  was  not  taking  too  much  of  his  time.  I 
had  noticed  that  his  forehead  was  not  marked,  a 
sign  that  he  had  not  bathed  and  prayed  as  his 
ritual  requires.  "Oh,"  he  replied,  "I  have  my 
own  private  god  in  my  compound!"  On  the 
other  hand,  an  educated  and  travelled  Hindu, 
of  whom  I  saw  a  good  deal,  told  me  that  he  was 
what  we  would  call  a  "Unitarian!"  Another 
Brahman,  of  the  mystical  type,  is  said  to  have 
remarked  quite  casually:  "I  have  never  seen 
Christ  myself,  but  I  have  a  friend  who  often  sees 
him,  and  he  tells  my  friend  that  he  finds  many 
of  his  followers  very  trying  people." 

I  remember  I  took  a  course  of  study  in  the 
Ethnic  Religions  when  at  the  University,  but  of 
these  mystic  refinements  on  the  one  hand,  and 
these  crudities  on  the  other,  I  knew  nothing  till 
I  was  face  to  face  with  them  here.  One  is  rather 
shocked  at  the  abysmal  gulf  between  the  book 
and  the  fact,  between  the  professorial  teaching 
and  the  practice,  when  one  is  brought  into  close 
contact  with  the  latter  in  India.  As  I  stand  be- 
side the  reeking  cow,  ankle-deep  in  filth,  in  the 


208       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

temple  of  this  dark,  crowded  court  in  Benares, 
and  see  the  earnestness  of  the  worshippers,  I  am 
impressed  by  the  fact  that  all  I  know,  or  may 
have  known,  or  shall  know,  is  of  little  use  in 
interpreting  this  situation  which  is  here  and 
now,  and  which  has  been  for  thousands  of 
years. 

All  religions  really,  whether  of  Buddha,  Brah- 
ma, Muhammad,  or  Christ,  maintain  that  life 
is  to  die.  The  Buddhist  and  the  Brahman  and 
the  Muhammadan  stick  to  the  original  text,  to 
the  primitive  message.  We  Westerners  have 
twisted  the  Christianity  of  Christ  into  a  code  and 
a  creed  suited  to  our  climate,  our  environment, 
our  temperament,  and  our  ambitions,  and  we 
maintain  that  life  is  to  live.  But  no  philosophy 
and  no  religion  which  has  its  roots  in  the  East 
can  be  fairly  interpreted  as  giving  such  a  mes- 
sage. We  have  interpreted  isolated  texts  to  please 
our  love  of  life,  but  the  founder  of  Christianity 
was  an  Oriental,  with  the  same  profound  con- 
viction that  "my  Father's  many  mansions"  are 
preferable  to  hut  or  palace  here,  which  char- 
acterizes the  creeds  of  the  Buddhist,  the  Brah- 
man, and  the  Muhammadan.  The  Buddhist  is 
a  Buddhist,  the  Brahman  is  a  Brahman,  the  Mu- 
hammadan is  a  Muhammadan  but  we  West- 
erners are  not  Christians.     We  merelv  wear  an 


RELIGION  AND   CASTE  209 

ethical  cloak,  made  up  of  a  patchwork  of  sayings, 
which  we  have  wrenched  from  their  context,  to 
enable  us  to  do  our  work  in  the  world  with  free- 
dom of  movement.  Were  we  to  wrap  ourselves 
in  the  genuine  robes  of  Christianity  we  should  be 
as  hampered,  and  as  helpless,  as  are  the  thor- 
ough-going disciples  of  Buddha,  Brahma,  or 
Muhammad. 

Hinduism  is  not  only  a  religious  bond,  but  it 
is  also  a  sort  of  social  league  governing  all  the  re- 
lations of  life.  As  a  social  league  it  rests  upon 
caste,  that  immovable  barrier  against  reform  or 
progress ;  as  a  religious  bond  it  rests  upon  a  union 
of  the  Aryan  and  the  Buddhistic  faith.  Hindu- 
ism recognized  the  so-called  twice-born,  or  Aryan 
castes,  that  is,  the  Brahmans  or  priests,  the  Kshat- 
triyas  or  warriors,  the  Vaisyas  or  agriculturists, 
and  the  Sudras  or  serfs.  But  this  is  a  mere  guide- 
book classification.  If  you  investigate  the  make- 
up of  an  Indian  village  you  may  find  herdsmen, 
fishermen,  weavers,  artisans,  barbers,  coolies, 
some  Muhammadans,  some  Brahmans,  traders, 
money-lenders,  and  here  and  there  Mahrattas, 
and  a  few  other  immigrants.  But  even  these  di- 
visions do  not  begin  to  complete  the  list,  for  there 
are  still  subdivisions  of  these.  Even  the  Brah- 
mans have  ten  distinct  classes  or  nations,  and 
these  again  are  divided  into  some  two  thousand 


210       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

tribes.  In  Bombay  alone,  where  there  are  more 
than  a  million  Brahmans,  there  are  some  two 
hundred  groups  of  them,  none  of  which  inter- 
marries with  another.  In  Madras  there  are  six 
groups,  each  speaking  a  different  tongue,  and  no 
member  of  one  group  will  marry  or  eat  with  the 
member  of  another;  while  each  of  these  groups, 
again,  has  rules  regarding  the  persons  within  its 
own  circle,  with  whom  its  members  may  marry 
or  eat  cooked  food. 

The  Brahmans  of  the  south  of  India  claim  to 
be  of  higher  rank  than  the  Brahmans  of  the  north, 
holding  that  the  Brahmanism  of  the  north  has 
been  defiled  by  one  conqueror  after  another, 
while  they  of  the  south  have  remained  more  or 
less  untouched  by  foreign  influences.  Unlike 
the  northern  Brahman,  there  is  no  lower  caste 
from  whom  the  southern  Brahman  will  take 
water. 

In  this  matter  of  religion,  as  in  political  and 
social  matters,  the  women  of  India  are  bigotedly 
conservative,  and  insistent  upon  maintaining 
all  the  traditional  observances.  The  most  out- 
spoken and  the  fiercest  rebels  against  the  Eng- 
lish power  whom  I  met  in  India  were  women. 
The  two  I  remember  best  were,  one  the  wife  of 
a  prominent  Maharaja,  and  the  other  the  sis- 
ter of  a  distinguished  Muhammadan.  They  were 


RELIGION   AND    CASTE  211 

ready  to  take  any  measures  to  rid  India  of  Brit- 
ish rule.  So,  too,  the  Kshattriyas,  or  Rajputs, 
are  divided  into  some  six  hundred  tribes  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  India.  The  authorities  say  that  it 
is  impossible  to  number  all  the  castes  in  India. 
They  number  thousands  at  least. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  the  members  of 
these  different  castes  cannot  intermarry,  cannot 
eat  together,  and  that  as  a  rule  no  Hindu  of  good 
caste  may  eat  food  prepared  by  a  man  of  inferior 
caste,  and  that  much  the  same  rule  obtains  in 
regard  to  the  drinking  of  water,  one  begins  to  un- 
derstand dimly  the  difficulties  inherent  in  any 
dealings  with  these  people,  whether  for  hygienic, 
social,  or  military  purposes.  Verily,  their  ways 
are  not  as  our  ways.  Even  at  the  railway  sta- 
tions in  some  parts  of  India  you  see  notices 
posted:  "Water  for  Hindus."  "Water  for  Mu- 
hammadans." 

Just  as  one  example,  imagine  the  difficulty 
of  helpfulness  to  one  another  when  the  neglected 
and  the  help-needing  person  may  be  one  whom 
to  touch,  or  to  come  in  contact  with  in  any  way, 
is  a  social  and  religious  degradation,  imperilling 
not  only  one's  social  position,  but  one's  salvation. 
The  enlightened  ruler  of  Baroda,  His  Highness, 
the  Gaekwar,  calls  these  people  the  "Untoucha- 
bles," a  very  happy  description  of  them,  and  he 


212       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

estimates  their  numbers  at  six  million,  or  a  fifth 
of  the  population.  He,  a  Hindu  of  the  Maratha 
branch  himself,  says:  "The  system  which  divides 
us  into  innumerable  castes,  claiming  to  rise  by 
minutely  graduated  steps  from  the  Pariah  to  the 
Brahman,  is  a  whole  tissue  of  injustice,  split- 
ting men  equal  by  nature  into  divisions  high  and 
low,  based  not  on  the  natural  standard  of  per- 
sonal qualities,  but  on  the  accident  of  birth. 
The  eternal  struggle  between  caste  and  caste  for 
social  superiority  has  become  a  source  of  con- 
stant ill-feeling  in  these  days.  The  human  de- 
sire to  help  the  members  of  one's  caste  also  leads 
to  nepotism,  heart-burnings,  and  consequent  mu- 
tual distrust." 

The  polluting  power  of  a  cat,  as  an  example 
of  the  intricacies  of  this  subject  of  caste,  is  small, 
of  a  dog  greater,  but  nothing  equals  the  pol- 
lution of  a  Pariah.  Man,  in  this  connection,  is 
degraded  below  the  beasts.  Sfcich  people  are  de- 
nied the  advantages  of  social  sympathy  and  in- 
dustrial aid.  They  are  denied  all  influence  for 
good,  arising  out  of  free  intercourse  with  their 
neighbors.  The  full  and  free  use  of  hospitals, 
of  public  inns,  public  conveyances,  wells,  and 
even  temples,  is  withheld  from  them.  They  are 
even  refused  the  opportunities  of  earning  a  liv- 
ing.    Menial  service  even  is  denied  them,  as  they 


RELIGION  AND   CASTE  213 

cannot  touch  the  food  or  enter  the  houses  of  the 
higher  castes. 

My  friend,  the  Maharaja  Gaekwar  of  Baroda, 
is  possibly  the  most  outspoken  prince  in  India, 
so  I  quote  another  saying  of  his,  that  my  readers 
may  know  something  of  his  political  and  social 
views:  "I  can  quite  understand  the  difficulty  in- 
volved in  giving  up  one's  inherited  ideals  of 
thought  and  custom,  especially  in  conservative 
India.  If  the  Indian  people  wish  to  progress, 
and  to  make  the  most  of  their  national  influence, 
they  must  consciously  give  up  these  old  false 
ideals  and  open  their  eyes  to  the  light  of  prog- 
ress, in  which  not  one  class  or  many  classes,  but 
all  shall  share.  Men  are  asking  for  a  constitu- 
tion, by  which  they  may  limit  the  powers  of 
princes  and  governments;  they  neglect  to  limit 
the  tyrannical  and  despotic  sway  of  religion, 
which  is  crushing  the  life  out  of  our  people  by 
driving  out  of  them  all  sense  of  personal  pride, 
all  individuality  and  ambition.  There  is  no 
room  in  the  world  of  to-day  for  such  priests  as  are 
little  gods  with  an  exaggerated  idea  of  their  own 
importance,  insisting  upon  their  infallibility,  con- 
tent with  ignorance,  contemptuous  of  knowledge. 
Priests  of  this  kind  are  a  drag  on  the  wheels  of 
progress.  Instead  of  ministering  to  the  people 
they  are  their  bad  angels." 


214       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Sir  Harry  Johnston,  who  at  least  cannot  be  ac- 
cused of  not  knowing  India,  writes:  "The  one 
hundred  and  sixty-two  million  Hindu  men  and 
women  and  children  follow  for  the  most  part 
wholly  unreasonable  forms  of  religion,  quite  in- 
compatible with  modern  ideas  of  physical  devel- 
opment, social  progress,  sanitation,  avoidance 
of  cruelty,  and  unrestricted  intercourse  with  one's 
fellow-men."  To  this  he  adds:  "If  all  forms 
of  the  Hindu  religion  —  Brahmanism  —  could  be 
submitted  to  an  impartial  world-congress  of  non- 
Hindus,  the  members  of  which  were  selected  from 
all  parts  of  non-Hindu  Asia,  from  America,  Eu- 
rope, and  Africa,  the  Hindu  religion  would  be 
universally  condemned  as  a  mixture  of  night- 
mare nonsense  and  time-wasting  rubbish,  ful- 
filling no  useful  end  whatever,  only  adding  to 
the  general  burden  borne  by  humanity  in  its 
struggle  for  existence.  And,  of  course,  so  long 
as  two  hundred  million  Indians  remain  attached 
to  these  preposterous  faiths,  with  their  absurd 
and  useless  ceremonials  and  food  taboos,  so  lon^ 
—  if  for  that  reason  alone  —  will  the  British  be 
justified  in  ruling  the  Indian  Empire  with  some 
degree  of  absolutism." 

In  this  connection,  one  should  remember  that 
of  the  fifty-five  million  adult  Muhammadans, 
about  seventy-five  per  cent  can   read  and  write 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  215 

in  Hindustani,  and  some  ten  per  cent  are  ac- 
quainted with  English;  while  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty-two  million  Hindus  only  twenty 
per  cent  of  the  adult  males  can  read  and  write 
in  the  vernacular,  and  only  three  per  cent  are 
acquainted  with  English. 

It  is  somewhat  disconcerting  to  an  observer 
and  student  of  Indian  affairs,  therefore,  to  find 
that  it  is  from  the  Hindu  element  and  largely 
from  the  Brahman  caste  that  the  murderers, 
bomb-throwers,  seditious  editors  of  the  vernac- 
ular press,  and  the  men  who  shoot  down  the 
English  officials  on  platforms  and  in  theatres  are 
drawn.  It  can  only  mean  that  the  great  Brah- 
man caste,  which  for  centuries  have  been  the 
social  and  political  leaders  of  these  timid  and 
ignorant  masses,  are  jealous  of  the  English  au- 
thority. Instead  of  aiding  in  all  efforts  to  im- 
prove the  sanitation,  in  all  efforts  to  protect  the 
peasant  from  the  money-lender,  in  all  schemes 
for  irrigation  and  education,  the  Brahman  is  the 
leader  of  the  reactionist  party.  He  prefers,  ap- 
parently, that  the  mass  of  the  people  should  re- 
main ignorant,  debased,  diseased,  and  helpless, 
as  his  position  is  magnified  by  just  the  width  of 
the  social  chasm  between  himself  and  them.  He 
both  hates  the  English  and  despises  his  own  peo- 
ple.    He  and  his  people  have  been  the  victims  of 


216       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

the  Turk,  the  Tartar,  the  Mongol,  who,  times 
without  number,  have  swept  through  the  Afghan 
passes,  and  robbed,  slaughtered,  and  deflowered, 
but  he  has  always  heretofore  reappeared  as  the 
religious,  social,  and  political  lord  of  these  poor 
people.  He  would  rather  have  chaos  again  than 
see  his  acknowledged  superiority  slip  away  from 
him,  through  the  uplifting  of  the  masses,  slow 
though  the  process  be,  by  the  English  rulers. 

There  are  numbers  of  sympathizers  with  the 
so-called  Indian  patriots  in  America,  who  con- 
tribute to  their  funds  and  to  their  excitement. 
They  should  realize  that  it  is  the  Brahman  agi- 
tator they  are  backing,  and  they  should  take 
some  pains  to  assure  themselves  that  they  are  not 
putting  their  money  on  the  wrong  horse.  It  is 
well  enough  to  sympathize  with,  I  will  go  farther 
and  say,  and  to  help  any  body  of  men  suffering 
from  the  tyranny  of  injustice  and  brutality, 
whether  at  home  or  abroad.  Though  we  have 
many  such  down-trodden  people  in  America 
needing  attention,  it  is  perhaps  excusable  in  cer- 
tain temperaments  to  prefer  the  excitement  of 
participation  in  revolutions  abroad,  where  at  any 
rate  their  own  skins  may  remain  whole,  whatever 
happens.  But  this  attempt  of  the  Brahman  agi- 
tators to  oust  the  British,  or  at  all  events  to  gain 
more  offices,  more  authority,  and  more  power  for 


RELIGION  AND   CASTE  217 

themselves,  is  an  effort  to  replace  British  control 
by  the  rule  of  the  Brahman,  which  represents  the 
most  tyrannical,  the  most  un-American,  and  the 
most  revolting  social,  religious,  and  political 
autocracy  the  world  has  ever  seen.  How  any 
American,  whatever  his  ideals  or  his  sympathies, 
can  lend  his  influence  in  support  of  a  movement 
to  increase  the  power  of  the  Brahman  caste  in 
India,  politically  or  otherwise,  can  only  be  ex- 
plained on  two  grounds :  he  is  either  maliciously 
mischievous,  or  he  is  ignorant.  If  one  were  to 
search  the  world  to  find  ideals  utterly  unlike,  and 
destructive  of  American  ideals  of  government,  of 
religious  liberty,  and  of  social  freedom,  he  could 
find  them  nowhere  better  than  in  Brahmanism. 
The  Brahman  has  never  been  a  fighting-man; 
he  has  fattened  upon  superstition,  and  conse- 
quently has  aided  it,  and  continues  to  encour- 
age it  to  the  utmost,  and  holds,  consequently, 
the  strange  position  in  India  of  being  a  sedi- 
tionist  as  against  the  English  and  a  reactionary 
as  against  his  own  people.  There  is  a  harsher 
word  than  I  care  to  use  for  this  type  of  citizen, 
but  whatever  he  may  be,  he  is  distinctly  a 
stumbling-block  in  the  present  situation.  Men 
who  ask  for  larger  representation  in  the  govern- 
ment, knowing  full  well  that  they  alone  are  suf- 
ficiently educated   to  profit  by  it,  and  who  are 


218        THE    WEST    IX   THE   EAST 

inciting  the  weak-minded  to  assassinate,  and  the 
ignorant  to  balk,  the  alien  reformers,  are  difficult 
to  deal  with,  especially  when  one  hears  on  every 
side  from  disinterested  natives  that  they  tremble 
at  the  idea  of  their  future  magistrates,  having 
as  much  concern  with  the  increase  of  their  sal- 
ary as  with  their  caste  elevation,  and  who  say: 
"It  would  be  treason  to  humanity  to  place  us 
by  force  of  British  bayonets  under  the  yoke  of 
those  whose  flesh  creeps  on  their  bones  when 
they  hear  of  war."  I  quote  from  a  Rajput  noble 
of  Oudh. 

We  have  only  to  picture  to  ourselves  the  Pres- 
byterians, the  Methodists,  the  Catholics,  the 
Episcopalians,  and  the  railway  employees,  the 
shop-keepers,  the  clerks,  the  barbers,  the  butch- 
ers, the  money-lenders,  and  the  lowest  class  of 
laborers,  say  in  Utica,  X.  Y.,  divided  into  sects 
and  sub-sects,  not  permitted  to  intermarry,  to  eat 
together  or  to  touch  food  cooked  one  for  the 
other,  to  get  an  idea  of  the  helpless  chaos  so  far 
as  any  effective  work  or  progress  as  a  community 
is  concerned.  And  this  is  by  no  means  an  ex- 
aggerated picture  of  thousands  of  communities 
all  over  India.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  but  a 
very  rough  sketch  of  communities  far  more  mi- 
nutely subdivided  and  far  more  intricately  dis- 
associated. 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  219 

This  system  of  caste,  which,  by  the  way,  is 
the  great  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  native 
reformers,  whether  revolutionary  or  otherwise,  is 
not  limited  to  social  and  religious  matters,  but 
permeates  even  the  industries  of  the  people,  since 
each  caste  is  also,  in  a  way,  a  sort  of  trade-guild. 
It  makes  laws  and  rules  for  the  different  trades, 
and  even  goes  so  far  as  to  promote  and  support 
strikes. 

This  is  but  a  passing  and  superficial  state- 
ment of  a  most  intricate,  and  to  the  Western  mind 
most  incomprehensible,  social  and  religious  con- 
dition. I  mention  it  not  as  an  indication  of  eru- 
dition, nor  as  an  attempt  to  explain  or  to  make 
clear  what  years  of  study  and  experience  wrould 
hardly  compass,  but  to  give  an  example  of  one 
of  the  most  difficult  problems  facing  the  Eng- 
lish administrators  of  this  huge  continent. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  visible  ruler  is  soon, 
and  surely,  held  responsible  for  everything  that 
goes  wrong.  The  English  government  has  in- 
troduced authority  which  insists  upon  standing 
absolutely  aloof,  as  it  must,  from  all  interfer- 
ence in  religious  matters.  But  here,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  religious  life  begins  with  the  brush- 
ing of  the  teeth  in  the  morning,  and  thoroughly 
permeates  the  hourly  life  of  the  people,  their 
eating,  drinking,  marrying,  and  dying.     There 


220        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

are  new  and  strange  desires,  there  are  distress 
and  discontent  among  the  peasants,  there  is  a 
rearrangement  of  classes,  there  is  the  ignoring  of 
caste,  as  in  the  railway  trains,  where  all  must  of 
necessity  be  treated  alike. 

Fancy  the  New  York  Central  Railway  at- 
tempting to  cater  to  the  prejudices  of  Catholics 
and  Unitarians,  Vegetarians  and  Christian  Scien- 
tists, New  York  hoodlums  and  Brahmans  from 
Boston,  and  when  I  say  that  such  a  problem 
is  easy  as  compared  to  this  problem  of  caste 
in  India,  I  tell  even  less  than  the  bare  truth. 
The  government  is,  of  course,  blamed  for 
this  by  the  ignorant.  The  sages  and  teach- 
ers of  the  Hindus  have  been  preaching  for  cen- 
turies asceticism  as  an  escape  from  the  distresses 
and  wearisome  problems  of  life.  Now  comes  a 
spirit  of  progress,  rejoicing  in  and  lauding  ma- 
terial possessions,  comfort,  and  the  prolongation 
of  life.  Life  is  to  be  a  struggle  to  overcome  the 
impediments,  whether  physical  or  climatic,  to 
an  agreeable  existence  even  in  India.  Men  are 
pushed  forward  to  live,  and  to  live  as  comforta- 
bly as  possible,  who  heretofore  have  been  taught 
that  the  heights  of  human  perfection  are  reached 
only  by  those  who  live  most  simply,  who  ignore 
most  completely  the  material  side  of  life,  and 
who  quit  most  speedily  this  tenement  for  another. 


RELIGION   AND    CASTE  221 

The  Brahman  looked  forward  to  absorption  in 
Brahma,  the  Buddhist  to  Nirvana,  or  absolute 
loss  of  consciousness,  so  far  as  the  material  world 
is  concerned. 

There  was  a  thick-headed  citizen  of  Mar- 
seilles who  was  known  to  have  little  enthusiasm 
for  the  church,  but  who  was  none  the  less  a  fre- 
quent attendant  at  mass.  When  asked  why  he 
attended  mass,  he  replied:  "Oh,  j'attends  que 
9a  soit  fini!"  There  are  millions  in  India  who 
have  that  hopeless,  helpless  air.  Their  whole 
physical  and  mental  attitude  seems  to  say:  "Oh, 
nous  attendons  que  9a  soit  fini!"  Into  this  state 
of  mind,  into  this  situation,  the  Englishman  in- 
troduces the  wedge  of  Western  civilization.  Rail- 
ways, telegraph  wires,  canals,  hospitals,  dispen- 
saries, police,  justice  without  bribery,  and  the 
cheery  Englishman  himself,  playing,  shooting, 
making  himself  comfortable,  doing  his  duty,  and 
hoping  and  believing  in,  not  only  to-morrow,  but 
the  day  after  to-morrow.  "You  need  not  die  if 
you  don't  want  to!"  this  Western  civilization  says 
to  three  hundred  million  people  who  have  seen  lit- 
tle in  life  but  to  die;  who  look  upon  disease  and  dis- 
aster, famine  and  plague,  as  visitations  of  God; 
who,  some  of  them,  have  held  it  blasphemy  to 
try  to  cure  a  small-pox  patient,  because  it  must 
be  a  very  powerful  god  who  could  produce  such 


m       THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

an  awful  disease.  In  this  connection  it  is  fair 
to  remind  readers  that  even  the  English  were 
frightened  when  vaccination  was  first  intro- 
duced,  and  the  more  ignorant  expressed  the  fear, 
that  the  race  might  become  minotaurs:  semi- 
bovemque  virum,  semivirumque  bovem.  England 
comes  blandly  ignoring  these  gods,  smilingly  sure 
that  life  is  worth  living,  and  ready  to  spend  an 
immense  amount  of  energy  in  giving  to  life, 
what  every  Englishman  all  over  the  world  be- 
lieves to  be  the  only  proper  setting  for  such  a 
jewel — comfort!  England  comes  offering  prizes 
to  those  who  win  material  prosperity,  and  these 
people  have  not  merely  been  taught,  but  have 
had  it  ground  into  them  for  centuries,  that  ma- 
terial possessions  are  merely  the  hampering  bag- 
gage of  spirits,  which  should  be  always  on  the 
alert  to  escape  to  another  place. 

India,  for  all  these  centuries,  has  had  no  stand- 
ards but  those  of  birth,  blood,  caste,  and  the 
personal  power  of  conquest.  Poverty  was  no 
disgrace;  on  the  contrary,  the  religious  beggar, 
the  Brahman,  the  Buddhist  priest,  however  poor, 
was  a  person  of  dignity,  looked  up  to,  and  rever- 
enced, because  he  had  stripped  himself  of  every 
form  of  wealth.  Xow  India  is  being  inoculated 
with  the  economic  lymph  of  the  West.  They 
see  men  treated  with  respect,  and  placed  in  dig- 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  223 

nified  positions,  partly  at  least  because  they  are 
rich.  It  is  hard,  for  an  American  particularly, 
to  understand  what  a  tremendous  change  this 
marks  for  India.  What  a  man  accumulates  and 
holds  counts.  This  is  new  to  India.  This  situa- 
tion adds  measurably  to  the  existing  discontent 
of  an  ever-increasing  number,  who  measuring 
themselves  by  this  entirely  new  standard  find  in- 
equalities they  equally  dislike  and  do  not  un- 
derstand. 

They  are  beginning  to  wonder  if  one  may 
not  at  the  same  time  be  holy  and  rich.  It  is 
easier  to  be  good  than  to  be  rich  and  vulgar, 
they  see  evidences  of  this,  but  many,  none  the 
less,  are  being  influenced  to  prefer  the  latter. 

Their  own  miseries  were  not  enough.  They 
have  now  this  new  source  of  discontent,  the  poi- 
son of  the  West;  the  standard  of  money!  The 
social  and  even  political  tyranny  of  the  irrespon- 
sible rich  is  yet  to  be  their  portion,  and  their  po- 
tion, and  it  will  prove  more  unpalatable  to  them 
than  any  that  has  yet  been  forced  upon  them. 
They  must  go  through  all  this,  and  then,  alas! 
learn  all  over  again  that  comfort  is  not  prosper- 
ity, that  luxury  is  not  culture,  and  that  a  mind 
besmeared  with  odds  and  ends  of  learning  is  not 
education.  Even  England  and  America  are  only 
just  beginning  to  see  this. 


224       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

So  far  as  the  masses  of  India  are  concerned, 
they  still  preserve  and  adhere  to  their  centuries- 
old  polytheism,  they  worship  innumerable  gods; 
the  class  slightly  above  them  still  worship  the 
gods  of  the  Hindu  pantheon  as  manifestations 
of  divinity  which  is  everywhere,  in  short,  they 
are  Pantheists;  while  the  students,  and  teachers, 
and  intellectuals  of  the  higher  castes  are  weav- 
ing and  unravelling  the  fine  theological  threads 
which  were  doing  duty  for  the  scholars'  exercises 
of  the  fourth  century  and  the  school-men  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Mr.  Iv.  G.  Gupta,  writing  of 
orthodox  Hinduism,  says,  "It  is  mainly  and 
substantially  idolatrous;  and  image-worship,  in 
which  anthropomorphism  plays  an  important 
part,  is  its  principal  feature.  It  has  many  cults, 
many  sects,  each  having  its  special  gods  and  god- 
desses, but  all  combine  to  venerate  the  entire 
Hindu  pantheon.  The  worship  of  a  certain 
deity  representing  the  active  female  principle  of 
the  universe  is  never  complete  without  the  shed- 
ding of  blood,  and  she  has  even  to  plead  guilty 
to  a  hankering  for  human  sacrifice."  There  is 
more  than  one  example,  even  of  late  years,  where 
this  goddess  has  been  offered  human  sacrifices 
by  her  ignorant  worshippers. 

If  there  were  no  problems  of  taxation,  of  hy- 
giene and  sanitation,  of  education,  of  adminis- 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  *25 

tration,  of  safeguarding  the  country  within  and 
from  without  against  sedition  and  attack,  to  cure 
this  disease  of  the  religious  and  social  skin,  within 
which  these  people  move  and  have  their  preju- 
dices, were  surely  a  task  of  momentous  difficulty 
in  and  of  itself.  Fortunately  for  the  problem,  and 
probably  for  themselves,  this  hard-playing,  unan- 
alyzing,  governing  race  of  Englishmen,  with  un- 
bounded confidence  in  themselves,  take  all  these 
matters  so  lightly,  ignore  them  so  placidly,  dis- 
cuss them  so  flippantly,  that  for  them  they  cease 
to  exist.  They  come  and  stare  at  Benares  like 
children  at  a  pantomime,  then  return  to  deal 
justly  and  patiently  with  three  hundred  million 
wards,  as  though  the  whole  spiritual  and  intel- 
lectual life  of  thousands  of  years  and  millions  of 
subjects  did  not  exist. 

This  ignorance  and  confidence  explain  their 
success,  but  these  ignored  problems  are  nonethe- 
less the  fundamental  cause  of  most  of  their  anx- 
ieties. These  people  are  so  split  up  into  factions, 
racial,  religious,  social,  and  political,  that  they 
cannot  combine  to  free  themselves  from  their 
governors.  Herein  lies  the  safety  of  the  Eng- 
lish. But  1857,  the  year  of  the  Mutiny,  showed 
that  if  once  the  religious  prejudices  can  be 
touched,  then  the  fire  will  light  and  burn.  Once 
the  Muhammadans  were  persuaded  that  the  ab- 


226       THE   WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

horred  pig,  and  the  Hindus  that  the  sacred  cow, 
were  used  to  make  the  grease  for  their  cart- 
ridges, and  that  the  Russians  were  beating  their 
supposedly  unbeatable  conquerors  in  the  Crimea, 
they  threw  off  all  allegiance,  they  forsook  friends, 
they  killed  companions  and  broke  the  bonds  of 
years,  to  an  extent  that  their  own  officers,  who 
had  lived  in  the  closest  intercourse  with  them, 
could  not  believe  possible. 

The  seditionist  of  to-day  knows  full  well  the 
strings  to  pull  to  produce  another  uprising.  Not 
many  months  ago  it  was  going  the  rounds  that 
the  bone-dust  of  animals  was  to  be  mixed  with 
the  sugar,  and  the  Japanese  success  over  white 
opponents  has  been  used  to  the  full  to  inflame 
their  warlike  ambitions.  It  is  only  some  such 
attack  upon  their  religious  and  racial  sensibili- 
ties and  prejudices  that  can  pervade  the  mass  of 
the  people,  and  the  Indian  anarchist  knows  it, 
and  is  nowadays  again  on  the  lookout  for  some 
such  materials  to  start  the  blaze. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  too,  as  an  important 
factor  in  any  discussion  of  caste,  that  peace  has 
been  maintained  in  the  past,  in  these  thousands 
of  communities  all  over  India,  because  the  as- 
sembly, such  as  it  is,  has  been  influenced  by  the 
men  entitled  to  influence  it.  When  caste  is 
destroyed,  into  whose  hands  will  this  governing 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  227 

power  in  all  these  small  communities  fall  ?  The 
English  thus  far  have  left,  to  a  large  extent,  these 
smaller  offices  in  the  hands  of  those  who  have 
always  asserted  their  right  to  them  by  reason  of 
their  blood  or  caste  standing,  a  right,  be  it  said, 
universally  and  contentedly  recognized.  There 
is  no  new  influence,  no  new  arrangement  to  sup- 
plant this  old  system,  and  the  old  system  of  caste 
is  being,  even  though  very  slowly,  corroded  and 
eaten  away  by  the  civilization  of  the  West.  When 
it  disappears,  the  governors  of  India  will  have  an- 
other difficult  problem  to  face.  They  will  have 
reached  the  summit  of  one  mountain  of  reform 
only  to  see  another  peak  beyond.  Caste  may 
interfere  with  progress,  but  it  undoubtedly  helps 
mightily  to  preserve  the  peace.  Caste  is  a  bet- 
ter policeman  even  than  the  Englishman.  Once 
this  system,  which  has  permeated  for  thousands 
of  years  and  still  does  permeate  all  classes  in 
India,  is  weakened,  or  ridiculed  out  of  exist- 
ence, all  sorts  of  other  superstitions  will  follow 
to  create  trouble. 

There  were  actual  riots  in  the  streets  of  the 
capital  of  Korea,  some  years  ago,  due  to  a  wide- 
spread report  that  the  American  missionaries 
were  boiling  Korean  babies  to  manufacture 
chemicals  for  photographic  processes.  This  was, 
indeed,  a  tribute  to  Yankee  ingenuity,  but  it  is 


228       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

also  an  illustration  of  what  preposterous  meth- 
ods may  be  used  successfully  to  breed  trouble 
among  masses  of  ignorant  people. 

It  is  an  interesting  commentary  upon  the  im- 
partial attitude  of  the  English,  that  while  they 
pay  and  protect  missionaries  in  India  and  else- 
where, they  are  at  the  same  time  large  manu- 
facturers and  shippers  of  idols  to  these  same 
countries. 

The  ordained  missionaries  in  India  number 
something  over  a  thousand,  with  about  the  same 
number  of  native  pastors.  They  have  made 
practically  no  impression  upon  India,  and  the 
best  of  them,  both  European  and  native,  admit 
as  much  themselves.  The  converts  are  almost 
entirely  from  the  lowest  class  of  natives,  and  from 
the  Eurasians,  that  is,  those  of  mixed  European 
and  Indian  parentage,  a  class,  by  the  way, 
for  whom  one  has  much  sympathy,  as  they  are 
equally  despised  and  rejected  by  the  English 
and  the  Indians.  "In  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a 
hundred  (always  excepting  the  Roman  Catholic 
Christians  of  the  West  Coast)  to  be  a  Christian 
is  to  have  been  a  pariah,"  writes  Stanley  Rice,  a 
recognized  authority  on  the  subject.  Medical 
assistance,  teaching,  and  so  on  by  the  mission- 
aries are  valuable,  but  I  doubt  whether  either 
the  civilian  or  the  soldier  would  not  willingly  see 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  229 

the  whole  band  of  missionaries  sent  home. 
Their  interest  in  the  native  sometimes  gets  to  the 
point  of  mawkishness,  leading  the  native  to  over- 
estimate his  own  importance,  and  weakening  his 
respect  for  authority.  Upon  the  better-class 
Indian  mind,  the  necessary  assumption  of  omni- 
science which  must  underlie  all  foreign  mission- 
ary effort,  particularly  when  many  of  the  mission- 
aries are  distinctly  of  the  social  and  intellectual 
mediocrity,  produces  an  invulnerable  dislike.  To 
them  the  theological  crazy-quilt,  offered  them  as 
a  coverlet  for  their  salvation,  a  patchwork  of 
Anglican,  Presbyterian,  Catholic,  Baptist,  Meth- 
odist, Lutheran,  and  Universalist,  must  lack  dig- 
nity, subtlety,  and  beauty  of  outline. 

The  Sanskrit  word  for  caste  is  color.  A  phi- 
lologist might  argue  that  this  matter  of  caste  prob- 
ably dated  from  the  time  when  the  swarms  of 
white  Aryans  came  to  India,  and  wished  to  cut 
themselves  off  and  to  keep  themselves  apart  from 
the  darker  races  they  found  there.  The  mission- 
ary finds  himself  balked  in  his  endeavors  by  his 
own  logic.  If  the  incarnation  is  true,  then  no 
race  which  is  Christian  can  remain  ostracized 
from  and  by  other  Christian  races.  The  Euro- 
pean Christians  in  India  are  a  caste  by  them- 
selves. They  will  not  hear  of  much  social  inter- 
course, or  of  intermarriage.     Indian  Christians 


230        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

are  even  barred  from  the  Transvaal  by  their 
brother  Christians  there.  White  Christians  re- 
fuse to  meet  African  Christians  even  at  the  sacra- 
ment; much  more  strongly  do  they  persist  in  os- 
tracizing them  socially. 

Whatever  the  Indian  may  be  physically  and 
morally,  he  is  admittedly  subtle  mentally.  To 
preach  brotherly  love  at  the  table  of  the  holy 
communion,  and  to  be  ready  to  slay  the  man  who 
should  propose  social  intercourse,  or  marriage, 
with  your  sisters  or  daughters,  is  a  difficult  di- 
lemma, a  hornless  dilemma,  in  fact,  for  the  mis- 
sionary. For  the  convert,  belief  in  the  incarna- 
tion is  indispensable,  but  for  the  white  converter 
to  carry  out  the  plain  prescriptions  of  the  incar- 
nation is  a  crime  against  his  race.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  there  will  be  no  great  missionary  prog- 
ress among  the  colored  races  until  this  problem 
is  solved.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  rooted 
beliefs  of  the  East  are  sometimes  puzzled  into 
ferocity.  And,  alas!  I  am  bound  to  admit,  as  an 
outsider,  that  I  am  not  sure  that  one  does  not 
see  Buddha,  Confucius,  or  Muhammad  in  the 
streets  of  Rangoon,  Peking,  and  Peshawar,  quite 
as  often  as  one  sees  Jesus  of  Nazareth  in  the 
streets  of  London,  Paris,  or  New  York. 

A  dozen  unmarried  women,  singing  and  beat- 
ing tambourines,  accompanied  and  led  by  one 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  231 

man,  must  necessarily  daunt  the  credulity  of  the 
Muhammadan  or  the  Chinese  Buddhist.  The 
only  effective  missionaries  I  have  ever  met,  either 
at  home  or  abroad,  are  those  few  people,  men 
and  women,  who  never  preach,  never  pray  in 
public,  and  never  by  any  chance  argue,  but  who 
make  us  humble  and  ashamed  by  being  better 
than  we  are.  They  convert  us  by  their  unvoiced 
consistency  of  conduct.  They  are  unsalaried, 
unconscious,  but  none  the  less  the  saviours  of  the 
world.  There  are,  and  always  have  been,  a  few 
lay  Englishmen  of  that  stamp  in  India,  and  I 
have  seen  some  of  their  converts,  and  they  are 
the  only  converted  ones  in  all  India  for  whose 
faith  or  courage  I  would  give  a  fig,  when  put  to 
the  test  of  the  shadow  of  the  cross,  or  the  edge  of 
a  sword.  That  stanch  and  fearless  churchman. 
Bishop  Creighton,  told  less  than  the  truth  when 
he  said:  "The  conscious  missionary  is  a  bore." 
He  is  often  a  menace  to  peace.  It  has  been 
suggested  that  one  reason  there  are  so  many 
heathen  is  that  missionaries  so  often  illustrate 
in  their  own  persons  the  unpleasant  effects  of 
salvation. 

Praying  to  a  congregation,  or  to  any  audi- 
ence, any  prayer,  indeed,  except  it  be  inaudible 
and  in  the  closet,  would  seem  to  be  a  most 
dangerous   and   daring   form   of   spiritual  exer- 


232       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

cisc,  a  sickening  form  of  idolatry  when  it  is  the 
mere  stringing  together  of  beatific  phrases,  and 
when  it  is  a  frenzied  tearing  off  of  the  spiritual 
garments,  an  awful  exposure,  more  curious  than 
helpful.  All  this  phase  of  the  matter  is  even  more 
apparent  to  the  Oriental  than  to  us,  and  to  them 
it  is  more  disconcerting.  The  number  and  the 
class  of  the  Christian  converts  in  India  prove 
this.  They  are  practically  all  of  the  lowest  class, 
for  whom  the  bait  of  food,  in  time  of  famine, 
and  protection,  have  been  the  main  temptations 
to  conversion. 

But  besides  the  Hindus  and  the  Christians, 
and  some  one  hundred  thousand  Pars  is  in  India, 
there  are  the  Jains,  a  sect  which  exaggerates 
some  of  the  Buddhist  doctrines,  as,  for  example, 
the  extreme  concern  for  animal  life,  bodily  pen- 
ance as  a  necessity  for  salvation,  and  so  on. 
These  people  maintain  hospitals  for  useless  ani- 
mals who  would  otherwise  be  killed.  I  have 
seen  two  of  these  compounds,  crowded  with 
camels,  bullocks,  cows,  water-buffaloes,  dogs, 
cats,  chickens,  pigeons,  and  so  on,  all  kept 
alive  by  this  fanatical  charity  which  holds  it 
wTrong  to  kill  a  fly,  or  vermin,  even  when  on  the 
person. 

There  are  the  Sikhs,  a  sect  of  Hindus  who 
recognize  no  distinctions  of  caste,  worship  the 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  233 

Granth,  or  holy  hook,  have  their  own  teachers 
or  gurus,  and  who  were  at  one  time,  and  even  as 
late  as  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a 
formidable  military  power. 

There  are  the  Marathas,  who  grew  from  a 
military  organization  of  local  Hindu  tribes  in 
southern  India,  into  the  most  formidable  mili- 
tary and  political  power  in  India  at  the  time  of 
the  break-up  of  the  Mughal  empire,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  eighteenth  century. 

There  are  the  Muhammadans  (they,  again, 
divided  into  two  sects  of  Shiahs  and  Sunnis), 
who  began  their  invasions  of  India  about  1000 
A.  D.,  and  who  now  number  sixty-two  mill- 
ions, or  about  one-fifth  of  the  total  population. 
There  are,  besides  these,  numerous  tribes,  some 
of  them  almost  extinct,  who  are  practically  sav- 
age relics  of  the  aborigines  and  their  Animistic 
worship. 

The  differences  between  these  various  sects 
and  tribes  and  religions  before  the  British  came, 
were  not  merely  the  epicene  pulpit  quarrels,  such 
as  mark  our  Western  theological  polemics,  mat- 
ters that  do  not  interfere  with  inter-dining  and 
dancing,  but  matters  of  life  and  death.  Mon- 
tesquieu writes :  "  Apres  tout,  c'est  mettre  ses  con- 
jectures a  bien  haut  prix,  que  d'en  faire  cuire 
un  homme  tout  vif."     But  these  people  did  not 


234       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

hesitate  to  clothe  their  beliefs  with  full  sanction 
to  use  both  fire  and  sword.  So  far  as  one  can  see, 
the  vitality  of  these  main  beliefs  is  unimpaired, 
and  the  pilgrimages  to  Mecca,  to  Rangoon,  and 
to  Benares  show  no  lessening  of  numbers  nor  of 
enthusiasm. 

If  one  is  to  see  anything  in  Benares  except 
a  diversely  colored  peripatetic  laundry  on  an 
enormous  scale,  one  must  have  some  such  thread 
of  knowledge  upon  which  to  string  one's  impres- 
sions. How  can  there  be  any  such  thing  as  na- 
tional or  patriotic  feeling  in  India  as  a  whole! 
The  people  of  Bombay,  of  Bengal,  of  Peshawar, 
of  Madras,  of  the  Punjab  can  only  slowly  grow 
to  feel  that  they  belong  to  one  great  Indian  na- 
tion. Their  speech  even  is  so  different  that  the 
man  in  Madras  can  no  more  understand  the  man 
from  the  Punjab  than  the  Spaniard  can  under- 
stand the  Russian. 

Not  only  the  differences  are  great,  as  between 
a  low-class  Hindu  propitiating  demons  and  wor- 
shipping trees,  plants,  stones,  rivers,  water-tanks, 
cows,  crocodiles,  peacocks,  all  held  to  be  sa- 
cred in  certain  parts  of  India,  and  the  high-class 
members  of  the  two  reformed  bodies,  the  Arya 
Somaj  and  the  Brahma  Somaj,  who  reject  all 
idol-worship,  and  have  refined  the  Hindu  relig- 
ious philosophy  to  the  point  of  radical  Unitarian- 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  235 

ism;  but  the  numbers  are  enormous.  There  are 
over  200,000,000  Hindus,  more  than  60,000,000 
Muhammadans,  more  than  9,000,000  Buddhists, 
nearly  9,000,000  Animists,  besides  Sikhs,  Jains, 
Parsis,  and  a  sprinkling  of  Jews  and  Christians. 

It  is  estimated  that  there  are  1,544,510,000 
people  in  the  world.  Of  these  175,290,000  are 
Muhammadans,  300,000,000  are  Confucians, 
214,000,000  are  Brahmans,  121,000,000  Buddh- 
ists, 534,940,000  are  Christians,  10,860,000  are 
Jews,  and  other  bodies  of  lesser  numbers.  The 
number  of  Christians  given  by  the  German 
statistician  I  quote  is,  I  believe,  exaggerated. 
Where  can  he  count  so  many  ? 

More  than  half  the  people  in  the  world  live  in 
India  and  China,  and  these  figures  give  one  some 
notion  of  the  colossal  loaf  of  paganism  that  it  is 
the  ambition  of  the  missionary  to  leaven.  These 
figures,  too,  tell  the  tale  of  the  bathing,  praying 
thousands  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Ganges  at 
Benares,  but  they  give  the  reader,  also,  I  hope, 
some  idea  of  the  terrifying  proportions  of  the 
problem  of  the  British  ruler  in  India. 

He  is  not  only  dealing  in  India  with  these  un- 
known, and  almost  incomprehensible,  diversities 
of  creed,  and  custom,  and  ancient  precedent,  but 
also  with  the  problem  common  to  all  of  us  every- 
where, of  the  political  status  of  the  individual, 


236       THE   WEST   IN  THE  EAST 

of  his  rights,  and  of  the  quality  and  quantity  of 
his  participation  in  legislation. 

No  Oriental  nation  will  hear  that  women  have 
been  given  a  vote,  and  thereby  a  voice  in  how 
they  shall  be  governed,  without  a  vocal  and  phys- 
ical protest  such  as  no  mutiny  even  can  parallel. 

Great  Britain  is  being  assaulted  just  now  by 
women  demanding  the  suffrage.  What  will  hap- 
pen among  Hindus  and  Muhammadans,  with 
their  notions  of  the  position  of  women,  should 
women  be  given  the  vote,  is  rather  beyond  or- 
dinary imaginative  powers.  Orientals  are  all 
born  and  bred  aristocrats.  It  is  the  Indians 
who  visit  England,  and  who  discover  how  un- 
Brahman  are  many  of  their  rulers  there,  who 
return  to  spread  the  seeds  of  discontent  even  now. 
The  Oriental,  of  all  others,  knows  the  folly  of 
the  rights  of  man. 

Rousseau  begins  his  Contrat  Social:  "L'hom- 
me  ne  libre,  est  partout  dans  les  fers."  The 
profound  error  here,  but  one  that  has  unduly  ex- 
cited the  world,  is  that  man  is  not  born  free,  he 
is,  on  the  contrary,  born  in  chains.  He  begins 
life  in  chains,  chains  of  parentage,  of  inheritance, 
of  environment,  of  capability,  of  disposition,  of 
looks,  of  strength,  physical  and  moral.  All  dis- 
cussions of  liberty  are  founded  upon  this  gross 
error.     Some  men  achieve  a  certain  liberty,  but 


RELIGION   AND   CASTE  237 

they  are  all,  everywhere,  born  to  slaver}!  No 
political  philosopher  of  the  West  knows  as  well 
as  does  the  Oriental  that  it  is  the  weak  who  are 
always  screaming  for  liberty,  while  the  strong 
are  forever  asking  for  more  strength  and  courage 
to  bear  the  responsibilities  that  liberty  has  put 
upon  them,  not  the  least  of  which  is  the  protect- 
ion of  the  weak,  by  assuming  the  right  to  rule. 
In  these  days,  indeed,  it  is  very  much  to  be 
doubted  whether  the  weak  are  more  burdened 
by  the  chains  of  subordination  than  are  the  strong 
by  the  chains  of  responsibility. 

It  is  an  enlightening  commentary  upon  the  dif- 
ficulties to  be  met  in  the  evolution  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  individual,  to  read  the  report  of  the 
Society  of  Comparative  Legislation  upon  the 
legislation  of  the  British  Empire.  For  the  ten 
years  ending  in  1907  twenty-five  thousand  new 
laws  were  made  by  men  for  the  restriction  of 
their  own  liberties  in  the  British  Empire!  First, 
men  strike  off  the  chains  of  the  church,  of  feud- 
alism, of  autocracy  which  bind  them,  and  then 
with  a  new  system,  with  self-government,  in  a 
new  era,  they  are  finding  that  the  new  liberties 
must  have  new  masters,  and  they  turn  to  laws 
for  their  masters. 

The  variety  of  problems  and  peoples  in  the 
British  Empire  is  shown  by  the  variety  of  sub- 


238       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

jects  dealt  with  by  these  laws.  There  are  laws 
punishing  witchcraft  and  widow-burning;  there 
are  laws  about  animals,  and  even  about  inani- 
mate objects,  as  in  Athens,  where  if  a  tree  fell 
on  a  man  and  killed  him  the  tree  was  solemnly 
tried  and  outlawed. 

This  glut  of  law-making  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  the  British  Empire.  We  in  America 
have  many  and  ludicrous  examples  of  it.  The 
horse  breaks  his  harness  and  is  free,  free  to 
cut  himself  to  pieces  running  through  the 
crowded  streets.  The  lion  breaks  out  of  his 
cage  and  cowers  in  a  corner,  bewildered  by  his 
freedom.  Men  break  away  from  one  tyranny, 
only  to  harness  themselves  in  a  mesh  of  knots 
and  buckles  more  hampering  than  before. 

The  intelligence,  the  experience,  and  the  wis- 
dom of  the  world  have  no  wish  to  enslave  or  to 
hamper  individual  liberty.  Certainly  we  Ameri- 
cans have  no  such  ambition,  nor  have  the  Brit- 
ish, but  just  to  take  the  harness  off  the  horse  does 
not  solve  the  problem.  Germany  and  Japan  are 
ominous  examples  of  how  happy  is  the  horse,  and 
how  well  he  goes  when  harnessed,  handled,  and 
housed  by  one  coachman  in  supreme  control. 

We  cannot  be  sure  that  we  are  not  cutting 
away  at  individual  initiative,  at  independence,  at 
personal  prowess  and  courage,  by  this  weaving 


RELIGION  AND   CASTE  239 

a  web  of  laws  around  the  individual,  even  though 
they  be  supposedly  for  his  protection  and  well- 
being.  It  may  be  that  he  is  better  off,  after  all, 
with  a  master,  rather  than  with  all  as  masters. 
This  much,  at  least,  must  be  said  for  those  who 
hesitate,  and  counsel  delay  rather  than  haste, 
when  dealing  with  India,  and  Egypt,  and  the 
Philippines.  Democracy's  cocksureness  may 
land  us  all  scrambling  at  the  feet  of  a  dictator. 
Liberty  is  a  far  more  complicated  problem  to  deal 
with  than  tyranny,  and  few  there  are  who  recog- 
nize it.  Those  who  read  these  scanty  sketches  of 
the  history,  and  of  the  domestic,  religious,  and 
social  problems  of  India,  will,  I  hope,  share  with 
me  the  feeling  that  a  nation  with  such  a  gigantic 
problem  to  solve,  should  be  judged  and  criti- 
cised with  extreme  care,  and  always  with  a  lean- 
ing toward  leniency;  and  that  we  Americans, with 
our  increasing  responsibilities,  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  in  the  governing  of  the  colored  races, 
should  be  the  last  to  criticise  ignorantly,  or  to 
counsel  others  to  walk,  or  to  walk  ourselves,  un- 
warily. 


VI 

HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA 

INDIA  is  governed  by  the  British,  but  only 
part  of  it  is  governed  directly  by  them.  Of 
the  1,766,642  square  miles  of  India,  690,000 
square  miles  are  under  the  rule  of  the  native 
princes,  as  are  66,000,000  out  of  the  300,000,000 
inhabitants.  There  are  some  6,000  native  chiefs, 
big  and  little,  from  the  Nizam,  the  ruler  of  Hyder- 
abad, with  its  population  of  11,000,000,  its  terri- 
tory of  82,698  square  miles,  and  its  revenues  of 
$12,000,000,  down  to  a  petty  chief  with  a  few 
square  miles  of  territory,  and  a  few  thousands  a 
year  of  revenue. 

There  is  as  much  variety  in  their  breeding,  and 
bearing,  and  ability  as  in  their  territories  and  reve- 
nues. Some  of  them  trace  their  ancestry  straight 
back  to  the  first  conquerors  from  the  north ;  oth- 
ers are  descended  from  Arab,  Tartar,  or  Afghan 
invaders;  others  are  the  descendants  of  court 
favorites,  and  their  ancestral  right  to  rank  is  as 
illegitimate  as  some  of  the  proud  names  in  Eng- 
land and  France;  while  others  are  heirs  of  rough 

210 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  241 

soldiers  who  grabbed  what  they  could  and  held 
it  when  the  Mughal  Empire  went  to  pieces.  Some 
are  highly  educated,  others  ignorant;  some  are 
Anglicized,  some  Pariscized,  devoting  much  time, 
those  to  cricket,  racing,  polo;  and  these  to  such 
European  travel  as  they  are  permitted,  and  lazy 
licentiousness  both  at  home  and  abroad.  There 
are  fine  gentlemen  among  them,  as  chivalrous 
and  as  proud  as  any  noble  in  Europe,  and  there 
are  others  who  are  mere  naughty  school-boys. 
There  are  not  a  few  who  spend  their  money  on 
schools  and  colleges  and  museums,  on  irriga- 
tion works  and  tramways,  on  roads  and  bridges 
and  model  prisons,  and  who  pride  themselves 
on  the  efficiency  and  smartness  of  their  Imperial 
Service  troops;  and  others  who  throw  thousands 
about  on  motor-cars,  jewels,  dancing-girls,  or 
favorite  wives,  and  hideous  Brummagem  fur- 
niture and  pictures.  There  are  burly,  heavy- 
shouldered,  big-hipped,  gross-featured  princes, 
who  look  like  brown  caricatures  of  some  of 
Rubens's  women;  and  there  are  lithe,  muscular, 
fine-featured  fellows,  who  look  fit  for  a  tussle  with 
a  tiger,  and  show  their  breeding  even  to  their 
finger-tips. 

"The  control  which  the  supreme  government 
exercises  over  the  native  states  varies  in  degree; 
but  they  are  all  governed  by  the  native  princes, 


242       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

ministers,  or  councils  with  the  help  and  under  the 
advice  of  a  resident  or  agent,  in  political  charge 
either  of  a  single  state  or  a  group  of  states.  The 
chiefs  have  no  right  to  make  war  or  peace,  or  to 
send  ambassadors  to  each  other  or  to  external 
states;  they  are  not  permitted  to  maintain  a  mil- 
itary force  above  a  certain  specified  limit;  no 
European  is  allowed  to  reside  at  any  of  their 
courts  without  special  sanction ;  and  the  supreme 
government  can  exercise  any  degree  of  control 
in  case  of  misgovernment.  Within  these  limits 
the  more  important  chiefs  are  autonomous  in 
their  own  territories.  Some,  but  not  all  of  them, 
are  required  to  pay  an  annual  fixed  tribute." 

It  can  be  no  easy  task  to  govern  these  semi- 
independent  princes ;  not  to  hurt  their  pride ;  not 
to  offend  their  sensibilities,  for  they  are  very 
touchy  people  indeed ;  not  to  restrict  their  liberty 
too  much  and  yet  to  keep  the  less  self-respecting 
among  them  within  bounds;  not  to  interfere  in 
social  and  religious  matters,  or  between  them  and 
their  subjects  and  neighbors,  and  yet  to  exert  a 
constant  influence  for  rational  government;  to 
shoot  and  ride  and  play  games  with  them,  and 
yet  to  keep  well  aloof  from  familiarity;  to  keep 
constantly  informed  of  their  doings  at  home  and 
abroad,  and  yet  not  to  appear  to  pry,  or  to  be 
suspicious;  to  be  called  upon  for  advice  in  the 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA   243 

most  delicate  family  affairs,  as  well  as  in  matters 
of  state,  and  to  keep  a  detached  mind  and  main- 
tain a  just  neutrality;  this  calls  for  a  very  unu- 
sual type  of  man. 

I  wish  I  were  not  debarred  by  my  own  rule 
of  not  mentioning  names,  from  giving  here  and 
now  a  picture  of  one  of  my  English  hosts,  who 
is  an  ideal  servant  of  his  country,  in  a  position  of 
this  kind.  He  is  the  resident  or  political  agent 
who  has  under  his  supervision  a  number  of  the 
native  princes,  one  or  two  of  them  of  great  im- 
portance, and  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  his 
guest,  when,  by  reason  of  a  meeting  of  the  chiefs, 
I  saw  him  in  personal  contact  with  them.  It 
was  a  revelation  of  what  one  quiet  man's  influ- 
ence can  do,  and  of  the  control  that  can  be  won, 
without  apparent  effort,  by  a  man  possessing  the 
rare  qualities  I  have  described  as  necessary  to 
cope  with  such  a  problem.  I  sometimes  won- 
der if  England  knows  the  value  of  some  of  her 
servants  out  here. 

Many  Englishmen,  whose  fate  and  fortune 
and  empire,  are  dependent  upon  the  success  of 
their  rule  in  India,  seem  to  be  interested  in 
India  as  sympathetically  and  as  intelligently  as 
the  Irishman  in  the  funeral  procession.  The 
long  line  of  carriages  was  obliged  to  halt  at  a 
certain  street-crossing.     A  passer-by  near  one  of 


244       THE   WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

the  carriages  asked  an  Irishman  sitting  inside 
whose  funeral  it  was.  "Shure  an'  I  dunno," 
was  the  reply,  "I'm  only  in  for  the  roide." 

However,  my  host  and  others  like  him  are  not 
looking  for  sympathy  and  not  stopping  to  think 
often  whether  their  work  is  appreciated  or  not, 
so  long  as  the  British  Babus  in  Parliament  do 
not  interfere  with  them.  They  probably  real- 
ize, as  do  all  men  who  do  the  hard  work  of  the 
world,  that  the  ladder  on  which  the  angels  de- 
scend is  usually  set  up  in  a  stony  place,  as  it  was 
in  the  time  of  Jacob.  I  have  no  brief  for  this 
civil  service  of  the  British  in  India,  and  my  praise 
will  probably  never  reach  their  ears,  but  I  cannot 
forbear  the  expression  of  my  admiration  for 
some  of  the  residents,  political  agents,  judges, 
commissioners,  and  deputy  commissioners  I  met 
and  saw  at  work  there.  They  are  doing  delicate, 
difficult,  and  dangerous  work,  with  a  coolness, 
devotion,  and  uprightness  unequalled  and  unap- 
proached  by  anything  I  have  ever  seen  else- 
where in  the  world,  and  withal  without  the 
slightest  attempt  to  advertise  themselves.  If  I 
were  in  such  a  position,  I  should  be  made  cyni- 
cal, indeed,  by  some  of  the  snap  criticism  from 
travellers  and  politicians,  and  from  the  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  Babus  from  England  and  else- 
where. 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  2-15 

We  Westerners  are  not  the  sole  progeny  of 
light.  Our  civilization  is  only  dawning,  and  big 
with  possible  disasters;  but  some  critics  from  the 
East  assume  that  our  social,  political,  and  ethi- 
cal weights  and  measures  have  been  tested  and 
stamped  with  approval  in  heaven ;  and  the  more 
crude  and  unkempt  the  civilization  they  repre- 
sent, the  more  categorical  are  the  prophets 
thereof. 

I  was  honored  by  invitations  from  about  a 
dozen  of  the  native  princes,  and  the  story  of 
some  of  these  visits  it  will  be  a  pleasure  to  tell, 
and  I  regret  that  I  have  not  space  for  all. 

The  journey  from  Bombay  to  the  native  state 
of  Baroda  was  our  first  experience  of  railway 
travel  in  India.  The  train  was  to  leave  a  little 
before  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  the  rail- 
way station  was  at  some  distance  away.  The 
bearer  with  bullock-carts  piled  high  with  lug- 
gage got  off  before  dawn.  We  had  ordered  cabs 
for  the  early  start  to  the  station,  but  when  we 
appeared  there  were  no  conveyances  of  any  kind, 
no  knowledge  on  the  part  of  any  one  at  the  hotel 
that  we  were  to  leave,  or  that  cabs  were  wanted, 
and  no  inclination  to  solve  the  problem.  It 
seemed  to  strike  the  hotel  servants  as  prepos- 
terous that  we  should  be  excited,  and  determined 
to  catch  the  train  we  had  planned  to  go  by. 


246       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

We  discovered  after  some  months  in  India, 
that  the  Oriental  way  is  to  make  a  pilgrimage 
to  the  railway  station,  settle  down  quietly  on  the 
platform,  or  at  some  convenient  place  near  by, 
cook,  eat,  bathe,  enjoy  the  excitement  of  incom- 
ing and  outgoing  trains,  not  infrequently  to  try 
to  bargain  with  the  ticket-seller  as  to  the  price 
of  tickets,  on  the  assumption  that  by  holding 
off  for  some  hours  they  may  be  had  cheaper, 
and  thus  to  get  away  gradually  somewhere 
within  twenty-four  hours  of  the  time  one  ar- 
rives at  the  station.  To  pull  out  your  watch, 
call  a  cab,  and  get  to  the  train  you  intend  to 
go  by,  and  all  within  an  hour,  seems  to  them 
like  rushing  to  the  theatre  to  see  the  curtain  go 
up,  and  then  leaving. 

It  may  be  impossible  to  hurry  the  East  along 
large  administrative  lines,  but  it  is  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  at  a  pinch  the  determined  traveller 
with  some  power  of  imperative  gesture,  and  a 
comprehensive  vocabulary  of  the  monosyllabic 
expletives  which  England  has  taught  the  mean- 
ing of  to  all  the  tribes  of  earth,  cannot  prick  this 
inertia  into  obedient  and  rapid  motion.  At  any 
rate  I  claim  to  have  done  so,  not  once  but  many 
times.  The  climate  is  ill  adapted  to  sudden  vio- 
lent expenditures  of  heat,  whether  in  the  form  of 
rhetoric  or  gesticulation,  and  the  consequent  open- 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  247 

ing  of  the  pores  may  lead  to  catching  cold,  but 
with  a  cholera-belt,  without  which  no  one  should 
travel  in  these  climates,  this  danger  is  largely 
minimized,  and  one  may  undertake  to  hurry  the 
East,  on  a  small  scale,  without  undue  risk. 

The  cars,  or  carriages,  in  the  Indian  trains 
are  divided  into  compartments  for  four  persons 
with  the  seats  facing  the  sides,  and  not  the  end 
of  the  train.  We  usually  had  one  of  these  to 
ourselves,  and  with  your  folding-table  and  chair, 
spirit-lamp,  supply  of  mineral  water,  and  some 
food,  I  found  the  travelling  very  comfortable. 
At  night  these  long  seats  are  widened  by  draw- 
ing them  out  slightly,  your  bedding  is  put  on 
them,  and  I  have  travelled  many  nights  in  this 
way,  and  in  spite  of  stifling  heat  sometimes,  and 
bitter  cold  sometimes,  and  the  most  amazingly 
penetrating  powdery  dust,  our  alkali  plains,  or 
Mexican  dust  are  nothing  in  comparison,  I  must 
admit  that  there  was  little  to  grumble  at.  This 
is  not  the  verdict  of  many  travellers,  I  know, 
and  though  I  believe  a  man  ought  to  claim  com- 
fort when  it  is  his  right,  I  may  be,  these  days, 
rather  an  easy-going  traveller  whose  experiences 
ought  not  to  tempt  the  finical  and  the  fussy  to 
repeat  them. 

When  your  belongings  are  all  in  the  carriage, 
hat-boxes,    helmet-cases,    medicine-cases,    gun- 


248       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

cases,  bedding,  table,  chair,  bags  of  all  sorts  and 
sizes,  food  and  water,  spirit-lamp  and  night- 
lantern,  cameras,  sticks  and  umbrellas,  hold-alls, 
pillows,  etc.,  etc.,  you  feel  prepared  to  go  on,  or 
stop,  or  to  cope  with  any  emergency.  These 
various  impedimenta  accumulate  gradually.  If 
you  deviate  at  all  from  the  main  lines  of  travel 
you  discover  that  there  is  no  sending  out  to  buy 
a  pen,  or  ink,  or  a  chair,  or  a  hot-water  bottle, 
or  medicine,  or  a  white  tie,  or  what  not  that  you 
have  forgotten;  and  not  infrequently  medicine, 
or  hot-water,  or  a  lantern,  or  towels  makes  the 
difference  between  discomfort,  and  even  illness, 
and  comfort.  And  moreover  the  man  or  woman 
who  takes  any  risk  of  being  ill  in  India,  and  it  is 
a  trying  place,  will  be  fully  recompensed  and 
severely  punished.  It  is  expected  that  you  will 
travel  in  this  caravan  fashion.  There  are  coo- 
lies innumerable  everywhere,  and  the  more  you 
have  the  more  autocratic  and  authoritative  is 
your  bearer,  and  the  more  consideration  he  re- 
ceives. 

When  we  were  later  the  guests  of  His  Highness 
the  Maharana  of  Udaipur,  I  saw  a  number  of 
tents  pitched  near  the  palace,  and  asked  what 
they  were.  I  was  told  that  the  daughter  of  the 
prince  was  visiting  him,  she  being  the  wife  of 
the  Maharaja  of  Jodhpur  whose  capital  was  not 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA   249 

very  far  away.  For  her  ten  days'  visit  to  her 
father  she  was  accompanied  by  a  retinue  of 
five  hundred  people!  So  although  our  carriage 
looked  rather  full  when  we  entered  it  to  start  for 
Baroda,  it  was  really  a  trifling  supply  of  neces- 
sities compared  with  the  usages  of  polite  society 
in  this  land.  In  most  of  the  carriages  is  a  small 
compartment  for  native  servants  next  to  the  first- 
class  compartment  and  opening  into  it.  As  your 
bearer  is  not  only  servant  but  interpreter,  who 
must  be  ever  at  hand  to  act  as  go-between  when 
you  want  fruit  or  tea  or  water,  and  to  ask  ques- 
tions for  you  in  regard  to  time-tables,  tickets, 
eating-stations,  and  other  matters  incident  to 
travel,  it  is  recognized  by  the  railway  companies, 
as  by  everybody  else  in  India,  that  he  must  be 
provided  with  accommodation  close  at  hand. 
At  the  hotels  he  sleeps  outside  your  door,  when 
you  visit  he  finds  a  place  within  reach  of  the 
noise  of  clapping  hands,  and  as  he  has  never 
known  the  luxury  of  chairs,  beds,  or  tables,  and 
would  not  know  what  to  do  with  them  if  they 
were  his,  his  choice  of  quarters  is  easy  and  means 
no  hardship. 

The  railway  fares  both  for  native  servants 
and  for  the  natives  are  cheap,  and  in  this  land 
of  pilgrimages,  these  cheap  train  journeys  are 
very  popular.     Here  at  any  rate  the  rigidity  of 


250       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

caste  prejudices  is  softened,  and  one  sees  car- 
riage after  carriage  jammed  full  of  men,  women, 
and  children,  their  bedding,  their  pots  and  pans, 
and  all  that  is  theirs,  and  the  more  that  can  crowd 
into  one  carriage  the  happier  they  seem  to  be. 
Many  times  I  have  seen  carriages  only  half  full 
while  others  were  overcrowded,  and  I  have  asked 
if  all  the  carriages  were  for  the  same  destination, 
merely  to  satisfy  myself  that  these  people  were 
really  crowding  themselves  voluntarily. 

This  question  of  the  treatment  of  the  natives 
in  railway  trains  is  often  referred  to,  and  many 
are  the  anecdotes  one  hears  of  the  bad  manners 
and  roughness  both  of  English  travellers  and 
English  railway  management.  My  experience  of 
travel  was  comparatively  limited,  though  I  cov- 
ered between  seven  and  eight  thousand  miles, 
and  journeyed  from  end  to  end,  and  twice  clean 
across  India.  Once  or  twice  native  gentlemen 
travelled  in  the  same  carriage,  when  I  was  alone, 
and  I  never  saw  any  rudeness  except  on  the  part 
of  the  minor  native  railway  officials  to  travellers 
of  their  own  race.  Once,  sometime  after  mid- 
night, I  saw  an  English  officer  pile  out  of  his 
carriage  in  his  pajamas  and  slippers  and  soundly 
berate  a  native  official  who  was  bullying  a  third- 
class   native   woman   passenger. 

The    manners    and    habits  of  even  the  better 


HIS   HIGHNESS   THE    MAHARAJA   251 

class  Indians  are  not  as  ours,  and  one  would 
naturally  avoid  travelling  in  the  same  carriage 
with  them.  It  is  to  be  remembered  in  this  con- 
nection that  it  is  of  all  tests  the  severest  to  travel 
together,  and  that  the  Englishman  is  both  shy 
and  selfish.  Even  in  his  own  country,  his  recep- 
tion of  a  stranger  who  enters  the  railway  carriage 
in  which  he  has  made  himself  comfortable  is  of 
the  most  frigid,  the  most  erinaceous.  On  the 
whole  I  think  he  behaves  better  in  India  than 
at  home,  when  he  travels.  All  great  travellers 
from  Gulliver  to  Cook  prefer  to  travel  alone. 

We  arrived  at  Baroda  in  the  early  evening. 
Late  in  the  afternoon  as  I  was  looking  out  I  saw 
a  picture  that  many  times  since  I  have  regretted 
that  I  could  not  imprison  with  brush  or  pencil  and 
keep,  as  typical  of  East  and  West.  On  the  roof 
of  a  lightly  built  staging  in  the  middle  of  a  dis- 
tant field,  where  she  was  standing  no  doubt  to 
keep  the  birds  from  the  grain,  stood  a  woman 
draped  in  her  deep  red  sari,  one  hand  on  her 
hip,  the  other  shading  her  eyes  as  she  watched 
the  passing  train.  The  sun  was  setting,  the 
glow  of  the  sky  behind  her  made  her  stand  out 
like  a  statue,  and  I  wondered  what  she  thought; 
whether  she  liked  it,  hated  it,  feared  it,  de- 
spised it,  longed  to  be  in  it,  or  wished  it  away. 
When  the  interpreter  comes  who  can  make  that 


252       THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

statue  of  India  talk,  we  shall  know  many  things 
that  no  one  has  told  us. 

When  we  left  our  carriage  at  the  station  at 
Baroda,  we  were  instantly  swallowed  up  in  a 
pushing,  haggling,  gesticulating  mass  of  brown 
arms  and  legs,  with  turbans  bouncing  about  on 
top  of  them,  whom  our  bearer  dealt  with  as 
though  they  were  troublesome  insects;  shortly 
there  was  silence  and  order,  and  several  emis- 
saries from  His  Highness  the  Maharaja  Gaekwar 
of  Baroda  greeted  us  on  his  behalf,  showed  us  to 
our  carriage,  and  we  were  driven  away;  later  a 
procession  of  bullock-carts  followed  with  the 
luggage,  Heera  Tall  making  himself  felt  as  was 
his  wont  when  our  importance  and  our  comfort 
were  to  be  explained,  no  doubt  with  help  from 
his  imagination,  to  those  who  were  to  serve  us. 

Wre  all  have  our  idiosyncrasies  as  guests  no 
doubt.  Personally  I  care  very  little  what  kind 
of  a  bed  I  am  given  because  I  can  sleep  anywhere 
and  on  almost  anything;  I  have  more  than  once 
nodded  in  a  dentist's  chair  and  on  horseback; 
but  an  open  fire  in  my  room  delights  me,  a  good 
tub  and  plenty  of  water  and  towels,  a  well- 
furnished  writing-table,  these  seem  to  me  indis- 
pensable; and  if  in  addition  I  find  a  book  or  two 
worth  reading  that  I  have  not  read,  my  happiness 
is  complete  and  I  consider  my  host  an  accom- 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  253 

plished  provider.  But  these  are  trifles  to  your 
Oriental  host.  He  takes  you  from  the  station  in 
a  carriage  with  two  turbaned  servants  on  the  box 
and  two  standing  on  the  foot-board  behind;  he 
puts  a  whole  house  at  your  disposal  with  a  stew- 
ard and  a  staff  of  servants ;  you  have  but  to  order 
your  carriage  or  a  saddle-horse  when  they  are 
wanted;  and  one  of  your  host's  own  officers  or 
secretaries  is  at  your  beck  and  call  as  guide  and 
interpreter.  He  does  not  take  you  to  the  play, 
but  he  sends  his  whole  troop  of  musicians  and 
singers  and  dancing-girls  to  give  you  an  enter- 
tainment in  your  own  drawing-room;  he  orders 
his  athletes  and  wrestlers,  and  there  were  a  score 
or  more  of  them,  to  perform  for  you  alone; 
temples,  palaces,  schools,  hospitals,  are  open 
and  ready  for  you  to  inspect;  his  army  is  called 
out  for  you  to  review ;  his  cheetahs  and  an  army 
of  beaters  are  there  to  give  you  a  day's  hunting 
of  the  deer;  his  elephants,  his  wonderful  white 
bullocks,  his  stable  of  horses,  all  these  are  at 
your  disposal.  If  you  are  interested  in  any  or  all 
of  these  things,  he  is  the  more  delighted  to  have 
you  for  a  guest,  and  the  more  willing  to  show  you 
everything,  and  the  more  eager  that  you  should 
prolong  your  visit.  What  puzzles  him  and  those 
about  him  is  that  you  should  have  fixed  dates 
for  other  visits,  that  you  should  consider  time 


2,34        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

as  a  factor,  permit  time  to  tyrannize  over  your 
inclinations.  Why  not  stay  on  a  month  with 
him,  and  let  these  other  matters  regulate  and 
adjust  themselves  ?  This  is  a  much  to  be  de- 
sired characteristic  in  a  host  to  be  sure,  but  one 
sometimes  wonders  if  it  does  not  prove  an  awk- 
ward thing  when  matters  of  business,  of  diplo- 
macy, of  administration  are  to  the  fore. 

The  Maharaja  of  Baroda,  or  to  give  him  his 
official  title,  His  Highness  Maharaja  Sir  Sayaji 
Rao  Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  G.  C.  S.  I.,  governs  a 
State  of  some  eight  thousand  five  hundred  square 
miles,  an  area  slightly  larger  than  Massachusetts, 
with  a  population  of  two  millions,  and  revenues 
of  something  over  four  million  dollars.  My  first 
meeting  with  him  in  his  summer  palace  revealed 
a  man  about  five  feet  six  in  height,  heavily  built, 
but  light  on  his  feet  and  graceful  of  movement, 
and  dressed  in  fine  white  muslin.  He  speaks 
both  English  and  French,  has  been  twice  around 
the  world,  knows  Europe  and  the  United  States 
well,  and  is  educating  his  sons,  one  in  England, 
and  one  at  Harvard  University.  He  is,  or  as- 
sumed that  mental  attitude  for  my  benefit,  a 
frank  admirer  of  American  institutions  and  the 
American  people,  and  hinted  guardedly  that  if 
ever  a  change  came  in  the  government  of  India 
it  might  be  somewhat  along  American  lines,  of 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  255 

a  federation  of  states  under  a  central  govern- 
ment. 

He  is  inclined  to  believe,  as  do  practically  all 
the  educated  and  intelligent  Indians,  that  the  ex- 
clusive, aloof,  and  unsympathetic  attitude  of  the 
British  is  responsible  for  the  strained  relations,  so 
far  as  they  are  strained,  claiming  that  distrust 
breeds  distrust.  Of  his  own  reforms,  and  no 
native  prince  in  India  has  attempted  more  in- 
telligently and  persistently  to  better  the  condi- 
tion of  his  people,  he  said  that  they  were  dis- 
liked by  his  people  largely  through  ignorance, 
and  that  once  they  were  understood  they  were 
appreciated.  He  said,  and  profound  and  true 
it  is,  that  an  autocrat  was  possible  and  permissi- 
ble so  long  as  the  people  were  left  largely  to  them- 
selves, and  to  their  own  social  and  political  de- 
vices; but  that  once  you  introduced  social  re- 
forms, interfered  in  their  daily  lives,  tried  to 
change  their  customs,  insisted  upon  attendance 
at  school,  vaccination,  hygienic  regulations,  en- 
tered, in  short,  upon  a  detailed  regulation  of  their 
intercourse  with  one  another  and  the  outside 
world,  then  autocracy  was  unbearable  and  im- 
possible, and  that  the  people  must  be  given  a 
voice  in  their  own  government,  when  their  imme- 
diate and  personal  concerns  were  thus  investigated 
and  dealt  with. 


256       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

He  spoke  freely  of  the  ignorance  of  trie  people 
he  governed,  and  said  that  even  his  own  relatives 
disapproved  of  his  travelling  and  of  his  eating 
with  strangers.  He  admitted,  owing  to  religious 
views,  daily  habits  of  eating,  drinking,  and  bath- 
ing, the  fine  web  of  custom  and  tradition  which 
holds  the  Hindus  in  its  meshes  every  hour  of 
the  day,  that  intercourse  and  sympathy  with 
foreigners  was  not  easy.  He  thought  political 
autonomy  to  be  a  long  way  off,  but  again  re- 
verted to  an  expression  of  the  feeling,  that  prog- 
ress might  be  faster  if  the  British  were  more 
sympathetic,  more  trusting. 

That  is  always  the  master  thought,  the  irri- 
tant factor,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all  the 
scores  of  conversations  I  have  had  with  the  edu- 
cated Indians,  this  criticism  of  the  cold,  stolid 
self-sufficiency  of  the  British.  The  Indians  do 
not  realize  that  they  are  not  alone  in  this  feeling, 
that  Frenchmen,  Germans,  Irishmen,  Ameri- 
cans all  say  the  same,  that  it  is  the  major  defect 
of  their  great  qualities.  One  can  hardly  expect 
the  Oriental  to  hold  the  balance  true  in  these 
matters  when  so  few  of  the  Occidental  critics 
have  been  able  to  do  so.  Few  of  us  are  big 
enough  to  judge  others  by  their  superiorities 
rather  than  by  their  weaknesses  and  littlenesses. 
Poke  fun  at  the  weaknesses  if  you  like,  that  is 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  257 

the  salt  of  life,  that  sense  that  we  are  all  of  us, 
even  the  best  of  us,  slightly  ridiculous  when 
looked  at  in  certain  lights,  but  never  forget  that 
it  is  the  power  that  drives  the  engine  that  counts, 
not  the  smoke  from  the  escape-pipe.  Most  crit- 
icism seems  to  devote  itself  to  the  bad  smells  at 
the  mouth  of  the  vent-pipe,  hence  its  slight  value. 
"They  but  rub  the  sore,  when  they  should  bring 
the  plaster." 

Our  days  were  full  at  Baroda.  The  Aide  as- 
signed to  us  turned  out  to  be  a  Brahman  gentle- 
man recently  returned  from  the  United  States, 
where  he  had  been  the  companion  of  the  young 
prince;  and  his  English  speech,  and  courteous 
manners  and  intelligence,  smoothed  the  way  for 
my  ardent  curiosity,  which  began  with  a  review 
of  the  Baroda  army  on  horseback  at  half-past 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  continued 
through  the  day  with  visits  to  schools,  libraries, 
hospitals,  wrestling-schools,  elephant  stables, 
armories,  state  jewels,  and  ended  at  eleven  at 
night,  with  a  performance  in  our  drawing-room 
by  His  Highness's  musicians  and  dancing-girls. 

In  the  guide-book  under  the  heading  Baroda 
it  reads:  "Good  refreshment  and  waiting-rooms 
and  sleeping  accommodation."  These  words, 
and  my  experience  in  Baroda,  mark  emphati- 
cally the  difference  between  seeing  India  as  a 
tourist  and  seeing  India  as  a  guest. 


258       THE   WEST  IN   THE   EAST 

Baroda  is  policed  and  lighted,  the  streets  arc 
watered,  there  is  a  good  supply  of  water  brought 
into  this  city,  which  has  a  population  of  over 
one  hundred  thousand,  from  a  lake  eighteen 
miles  away,  the  schools  are  well  attended,  the 
hospitals  clean,  and  the  jail  governed  in  most 
humane  fashion,  the  prisoners  being  all  kept  at 
work  at  carpet,  or  rug,  or  basket,  or  rope  making. 
I  visited  a  model  farm  where  experiments  arc 
being  made  in  cotton  growing,  tobacco  grow- 
ing, breeding  of  silk-worms,  and  where  I  saw  a 
guava  orchard,  and  English  vegetables,  cabbage, 
cauliflower,  and  tomatoes  growing. 

Next  to  my  gallop  with  Captain  Pathak's  cav- 
alry, the  visit  to  a  native  village  at  some  distance 
from  Baroda  gave  me  as  much  pleasure  as  any- 
thing. Part  of  the  way  we  went  in  a  carriage, 
and  the  last  part  of  the  way  over  the  rougher 
roads,  in  a  bullock-cart  drawn  by  a  pair  of  the 
famous  white  bullocks.  We  were  greeted  on 
our  arrival  by  the  whole  village,  with  the  im- 
portant men  at  their  head.  They  conducted 
me  to  a  covered-in  space  with  a  table  and  chair, 
and  the  fathers  of  the  village  sat  cross-legged 
on  the  floor  in  front  of  me.  The  head  men  of 
these  villages  are  often  office-holders  by  heredity; 
in  this  particular  case  no  one  could  remember 
when  a  representative  of  this  man's  family  had 
not  been  head  man.     The  village  seemed  to  be 


HIS  HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  259 

governed  by  seven,  three  appointed  by  the  gov- 
ernment, three  elected,  and  the  head  man. 
There  was  a  town  clerk  who  explained  to  me 
the  method  of  election,  the  way  the  accounts 
were  kept,  and  so  on. 

It  should  be  recalled  to  the  reader  in  this 
connection  that  in  India,  with  few  commercial 
towns  and  a  huge  agricultural  population,  self- 
government  was  highly  developed  in  these  vil- 
lages centuries  ago.  The  kings  or  emperors  had 
absolute  power  in  the  empire,  but  they  left  the 
villages  with  a  free  hand  to  govern  themselves. 
The  Indians  of  those  days  enjoyed  more  civic 
rights,  more  control  over  their  village  affairs, 
than  did  the  villagers  of  Europe,  who  in  many 
places  were  little  better  than  serfs.  When  Brit- 
ish rule  came,  with  its  strong  central  govern- 
ment, village  government  naturally  declined. 
The  villagers  became  less  interested  in  the  po- 
lice, schools,  charities,  roads,  wells,  tanks,  small 
civil  and  criminal  cases,  and  learned  to  lean  upon 
the  central  government. 

In  Baroda,  the  Gaekwar  is  attempting  to  make 
the  villagers  more  interested  in  their  own  affairs, 
and  is  putting  more  and  more  the  control  of 
small  concerns  in  their  hands.  Compulsory 
education,  among  other  things,  had  been  intro- 
duced, and  I  asked  the  assembly  in  front  of  me 


260       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

their  opinion  about  it ;  with  the  exception  of  two 
elders  who  seemed  unenthusiastic,  the  others 
thought  it  wise.  When  I  arose  to  go  out,  to  walk 
about  in  the  village,  wreaths  of  flowers  were 
hung  about  my  neck,  two  bouquets  were  pre- 
sented to  me,  and  I  was  given  betal  leaf  and 
cardamon  seed,  which  are  not  bad  chewing,  by 
the   way. 

I  visited  the  boys'  school  and  the  girls'  school, 
and  in  both  places  they  were  drawn  up  in  line 
to  sing  to  me.  I  was  allowed  to  enter  two  or 
three  dwellings,  rough  square  mud  huts  they 
were,  with  cows,  chickens,  ducks  walking  about 
in  the  compound,  and  all  with  cakes  of  cow-dung 
drying  on  the  walls  and  on  the  ground,  this 
being  their  fuel,  and  consequently  a  robbery  of 
the  land  of  its  natural  fertilizer;  but  there  seems 
to  be  no  remedy  for  this  in  a  land  of  no  natural 
fuel. 

At  the  well,  which  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  vil- 
lage meeting-place,  like  the  railway  station  at 
train-time,  or  a  popular  corner  grocery  in  a  small 
New  England  town,  or  the  Indian  trader's  store 
on  one  of  our  Indian  reservations,  the  women 
were  coining  and  going,  filling  their  earthen  or 
brass  or  bell-metal  jars.  Each  one  lets  down  the 
rope,  each  one  draws  it  up,  fills  her  receptacle, 
and  walks  away  balancing:  her  burden  on  her 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  261 

head.  It  is  a  picturesque  sight,  these  scenes  at 
the  wells  in  India,  whether  it  be  these  face-con- 
cealing women  with  their  statuesque  poses,  or 
the  men  with  a  pair  of  oxen  letting  down  and 
drawing  up  the  great  leather  bag  and  droning 
their  song,  as  the  oxen  pull  the  rope  up  and  the 
bag  is  emptied  into  the  narrow  channels,  which 
serve  as  tiny  viaducts  through  the  fields. 

I  have  watched  these  people  at  the  wells  in 
India  by  the  hour;  these  people  and  the  soldiers 
are  the  people  you  like,  feel  sorry  for  perhaps, 
until  you  discover  that  they  do  not  feel  sorry  for 
themselves ;  then  you  realize  that  you  are  pump- 
ing up  the  fantastic  sympathies  of  the  West 
which  are  not  binding  here  at  all,  and  all  too 
often  artificial  even  at  home,  a  way  of  making 
the  child  cry  by  so  much  sympathy  over  his  small 
bruise  that  he  begins  to  think  it  important  him- 
self. What  a  lot  of  that  there  is,  and  how  the 
demagogues  of  our  Western  world  are  making 
the  children  cry  over  hurts  that  they  did  not 
even  know  were  painful,  until  the  political  boss 
discovered  that  they  have  a  vote  value,  and  the 
advertising  philanthropist  discovered  what  good 
posters  they  make! 

If  appearances  count  for  anything,  I  have 
never  seen  happier  people  than  some  of  the 
Ghurka  and  Sikh  soldiers,  and  the  people  in 


262       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

many  of  the  villages  in  India.  Life  is  hard,  to 
be  sure,  but  life  everywhere  is  hard,  if  it  is  not 
soft,  and  as  for  that,  I  have  never  seen  people 
anywhere  so  unhappy,  so  little  to  be  envied,  as 
those  who  belong  to  the  soft  tribe,  whether  in 
India  or  in  New  York.  I  left  this  little  village 
of  Gora  with  garlands  of  flowers  around  my 
neck,  with  bouquets  in  my  hands,  my  mouth 
full  of  seeds,  attempting  to  reply  to  the  many 
and  profound  salaams  with  the  courtesy  and 
dignity  they  merited. 

Another  day  we  were  shown  His  Highness's 
jewels.  One  diamond,  a  pendant  to  the  great 
necklace,  is  the  sixth  largest  in  the  world,  and 
at  one  time  belonged  to  Napoleon  III.  There 
are  three  pearls  said  to  be  valued  at  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  and  a  pearl  necklace  well 
known  all  over  the  world  to  those  interested  in 
precious  stones.  These  were  merely  the  choicest 
things  in  a  collection  comprising  sapphires,  em- 
eralds, rubies,  and  other  jewels.  There  were 
inlaid  sword  and  dagger  hilts,  and  scabbards 
incrusted  with  precious  stones,  aigrettes  that 
were  showers  of  diamonds,  and  richly  embroi- 
dered coats  and  mantles. 

At  the  stables  we  saw  the  gold  and  silver  gun- 
carriages  and  cannon,  which  contain  each  two 
hundred  and  eighty  pounds  of  gold,  and  which 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  263 

are  drawn  on  state  occasions  by  white  bullocks, 
each  of  which  had  its  own  covering  embroidered 
with  gold  and  silver,  and  even  silver  cases  for 
their  horns. 

India  has  ever  hoarded  wealth  in  this  form. 
In  a  land  where  securities  are  unknown,  where 
wealth  must  be  easily  portable,  where  there  are 
no  savings-banks  and  trust  companies,  the  old 
methods  still  survive  and  prevail,  and  not  one 
but  many  of  these  princes,  and  other  rich  men  in 
India  still  count  their  wealth  as  most  secure 
when  it  is  in  precious  stones,  jewelry,  and  bul- 
lion. Even  the  poor  carry  in  their  ears  and  noses, 
on  their  fingers,  toes,  arms,  and  legs,  and  around 
their  necks  and  waists,  practically  all  they  pos- 
sess of  any  marketable  value.  What  else  can 
they  do,  in  a  country  where  there  are  no  doors 
to  the  houses,  and  no  locks  and  keys,  and  where 
a  brass  toe-stud,  a  gun-metal  nose-ring,  or  a  thin 
silver  anklet  represent  months  of  saving,  and 
taken  all  together  comprise  the  total  wealth  of 
the  family.  The  princes  merely  do  in  a  big  way 
what  the  peasants  do  in  a  small  way. 

Another  day  was  devoted  to  the  college,  high- 
school,  and  primary  schools,  with  their  dormi- 
tories, library  of  thousands  of  volumes,  play- 
grounds, and  class-rooms;  and  to  what  interested 
me  very  much,  a  so-called  national  school.     This 


264       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

school  had  some  sixty  boys  who  were  being 
brought  up  quite  apart  from  the  state  system  and 
without  state  aid.  The  boys  live  at  the  school, 
and  their  teachers  are  patriotic  volunteers  who 
devote  themselves  to  this  work  for  little  or  no 
recompense.  The  idea  is  to  bring  up  the  boys  in 
their  own  religion,  in  their  own  traditions,  and  to 
make  and  keep  them  Indian.  They  are  taught 
swimming,  wrestling,  club-swinging,  and  other 
ancient  forms  of  exercise,  some  of  which  I  saw 
in  practice.  A  curious  ascetic  idealism  forms 
part  of  their  working  creed.  They  have  their 
own  temple,  study  their  own  literature,  and  are 
taught  their  own  history.  The  head  of  this 
establishment  was  a  gentle-spoken,  highly  edu- 
cated enthusiast,  who  would  have  these  Indian 
youths  prepared  to  work  as  missionaries  to  keep 
India,  India;  and  the  Indians,  Indians,  instead 
of  brown  Britishers  with  bowler-hats,  bad  man- 
ners, a  tincture  of  Western  knowledge,  and  hy- 
brid patriotism.  It  was  pathetic,  but  no  man 
who  loves  his  own  can  help  lending  a  little  love 
to  the  fellow  who  loves  his.  It  struck  me  as  a 
forlorn  hope,  but  I  sent  a  small  subscription 
when  I  left.  There  was  no  greed,  no  gain,  no 
personal  ambition  in  it.  Here  was  a  John  the 
Baptist  out  in  this  wilderness,  with  little  more 
to  work  with  than  he  had,  and  a  dream  of  con- 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  265 

verting  three  hundred  millions  to  piety  and  pa- 
triotism; who  could  avoid  lending  a  hand! 

Some  miles  away  geographically,  but  latitudes 
away  spiritually,  was  His  Highness's  wrestling 
school.  There  I  found  a  group  of  athletes  that 
opened  my  eyes  to  the  possibilities  of  muscular 
development  in  this  climate.  The  Indians  as 
a  whole,  except  in  the  north-west,  are  physically 
a  feeble  folk,  whose  working  days  are  over  at 
fifty,  and  whose  women  are  haggard  and  un- 
lovely at  thirty.  These  wrestlers  went  through 
their  exercises  for  me,  and  to  my  surprise  I  found 
the  medicine-ball,  the  sparring-bag,  the  Indian- 
clubs,  and  the  catch-as-catch-can  bouts  of  wrest- 
ling of  my  youth.  They  also  showed  me  wrest- 
ling in  the  Japanese  fashion,  with  the  leg  and 
arm-breaking  holds  that  we  associate  with  the 
Japanese  but  which,  I  was  assured,  were  as  old 
as  Buddhism,  and  must  therefore  have  filtered 
into  Japan  by  way  of  China,  Burma,  and  Korea. 
When  these  wrestlers  lined  up  that  I  might  photo- 
graph them,  I  thought  how  an  American  foot- 
ball coach's  mouth  would  water  at  the  sight  of 
such  material.  If  I  was  surprised,  they  were 
surprised  too  that  I  could  swing  clubs,  play  with 
the  medicine-ball,  and  enjoy  a  bout  of  wrestling. 
How  colossally  ignorant  we  all  are  of  one  an- 
other ! 


266       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

No  other  town  in  India,  I  believe,  has  a  learned 
Indian  musician,  with  an  English  degree  in  music, 
who  conducts  a  school  of  native  music  and  de- 
votes himself  entirely  to  a  revival  of  the  old  in- 
struments and  the  old  music.  Baroda  is  thus  fort- 
unate. As  a  result  the  musical  instruments,  and 
the  music  and  singing  at  the  entertainment  given 
for  us,  were  classic.  I  admit  that  the  music  it- 
self gave  me  little  pleasure,  though  one  feature 
made  me  see  what  I  had  never  seen  before.  An 
old,  gray-bearded  man,  accompanied  by  three 
or  four  instruments,  including  a  small  drum,  re- 
cited a  long  tale  with  sobs  and  shrieks  and  vio- 
lent gestures.  There  and  then  I  am  sure  I  saw 
the  bard  of  Greece.  Thus  were  handed  down 
the  tales  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  and  this 
particular  old  man  was  capable  of  going  on  for 
hours  without  a  break  and  without  hesitation. 
But  when  you  have  reviewed  cavalry  at  o.30 
a.  M.  even  a  Greek  bard  telling  of  Achilles  is 
wearisome  after  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  and 
the  listener  has  been  out  of  bed  seventeen  hours. 
Even  at  more  ambitious  performances  I  have 
regretted,  that  the  author  or  translator  of  Psalm 
XCV  has  made  it  appear,  that  "singing,"  and 
"making  a  joyful  noise,"  are  equally  pleasing. 

Following  the  music  the  dancing-girls,  one  of 
them  both  in  face  and  figure  beautiful,  gave  two 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  267 

or  three  short  dances  and  one  long  one,  the  last 
being  the  story  of  two  children  kite-flying,  a  very 
popular  sport  all  through  the  East;  one  loses  her 
kite,  is  in  despair;  it  is  recaptured,  and  so  on. 
It  is  a  graceful  form  of  pantomime,  and  might 
be  given  before  a  Sunday-school.  Strange  to 
say,  in  these  Eastern  lands,  where  nakedness, 
or  partial  nakedness,  are  universal,  the  theatri- 
cal and  terpsichorean  performers  are  clothed 
from  neck  to  heel.  I  have  seen  much  dancing 
in  India,  Korea,  and  Japan,  but  it  is  always  the 
same  as  to  propriety.  Such  lascivious  and  sug- 
gestive performances  as  are  given,  are  for  the 
benefit  of  the  puritan-bred  libertine,  whose  diet 
demands  more  brutal  revelations  for  its  satis- 
faction. I  suppose  it  is  largely  a  question  of 
rice  and  red  meat,  and  it  would  be  interesting 
in  this  connection  to  have  trustworthy  statistics 
as  to  vegetarian  morals. 

We  were  honored  one  afternoon  before  we 
left  by  an  audience  with  Her  Highness,  the  Ma- 
harani,  the  wife  of  the  Gaekwar.  She  was  the 
most  beautiful  woman  I  saw  in  India,  and  talked 
to  us  of  her  children  and  their  education  in  Eng- 
land and  in  America,  and  broke  the  rule  of  re- 
ceiving men  in  her  palace  when  she  learned  that 
I  had  been  at  Harvard.  She  was  much  inter- 
ested in  the  local  schools  and  hospitals,  and  the 


268       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

reforms  of  her  husband,  and  seemed  to  be,  in 
spite  of  her  soft  eyes  and  gentle  speech,  a  master- 
ful person  with  a  mind  of  her  own,  and  far,  far 
away,  from  the  type  of  secluded,  uneducated 
women  which  is  the  rule  in  India.  The  surprise 
of  her  visit  to  America  had  been  our  women. 
She  thought  them  bold  and  noisy  and  lacking 
in  gentleness.  Even  her  evident  leaning  toward 
our  many  other  radical  departures  in  politics 
and  in  society  did  not  pardon,  in  her  estimation, 
what  seemed  to  her  the  vulgar  shrillness  and 
ostentatious  independence  of  our  wives  and 
daughters.  As  we  were  leaving  she  showed  me 
a  mounted  tiger  she  had  shot.  When  I  expressed 
my  admiration,  perhaps  with  a  little  surprise,  she 
said:  "Oh,  you  think  we  Hindu  women  cannot 
be  sportsmen!"  I  knew  better  than  that.  He 
who  knows  anything  of  Indian  history  knows  that 
India  has  had  her  Joan  of  Arc,  not  once,  but 
many  times,  and  that  the  Indian  women  have 
sacrificed  themselves,  not  in  twos  and  threes,  but 
in  hecatombs,  for  their  country. 

His  Highness's  Aide,  who  was  unwearying 
in  his  intelligent  attentions,  and  who  even  pre- 
pared us  a  dinner  with  his  own  hands,  such  as  a 
Brahman  might  eat,  and  sent  it  over  to  our  bun- 
galow, was  a  type  of  Indian  very  puzzling  to  deal 
with,  I  should  think.     He  was  a  man  of  strong 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  269 

religious  feeling  and  high  ideals,  far  more  thor- 
oughly educated  than  the  average  Englishman  or 
American  of  his  years,  and  revealing  what  I  had 
not  seen  before,  but  what  I  saw  often  before  I 
left  India,  a  sort  of  yearning  for  sympathy  for 
his  own  case  and  that  of  his  people.  He  too 
noted  the  lack  of  sympathy  with,  and  the  lack  of 
recognition  of,  the  best  class  of  natives;  the  re- 
fusal of  office  either  civil  or  military  above  a  cer- 
tain grade;  the  smaller  salary  paid  to  the  Indian 
than  to  the  Englishman  holding  the  same  office, 
all  of  which  created  a  sore  and  sour  feeling.  He 
was  only  just  returned  from  America,  and  the 
contrasts  leave  the  shadows  of  sadness  upon  him 
thicker  than  they  are  upon  other  men. 

He  was,  as  are  all  the  Indians  of  his  type,  mod- 
erate in  manner,  soft  of  speech,  gentle  even  in  in- 
dignation. They  are  pathetic  figures,  cut  off  from 
opportunity,  with  no  exercise  for  their  real  powers, 
and  feeling  that  they  are  only  allowed  to  play 
at  life,  that  the  real  control  is  in  alien  hands,  and 
they  chafe  at  the  situation.  He  was  much 
amused  at  the  ignorance  of  India  he  met  with 
in  America.  He  mentioned  the  parochial  or- 
thodoxy which  looked  upon  him  as  a  heathen 
and  as  a  worshipper  of  idols.  The  difference  be- 
tween an  educated  Brahman  and  a  Hindu  peas- 
ant, he  said,  was  as  great  in  religious  matters  as 
the  difference  between  the  Unitarianism  of  Chan- 


270       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

ning  and  the  Catholicism  of  a  Spanish  peasant, 
and  yet  both  claim  to  be  Christians! 

It  is  Sunday.  Two  green  lizards  dart  back  and 
forth  on  the  wall  before  me.  On  a  tree  outside 
the  window  a  monkey  is  watching  me  with  inter- 
est and  with  occasional  gestures  and  waggings  of 
the  head,  that  might  easily  be  interpreted  as  indi- 
cating contempt  for  my  sedentary  occupation, 
and  an  invitation  to  join  him  in  his  brisker  and 
healthier  arboreal  athletics.  What  a  difference 
between  us :  I  am  wondering  if  my  ancestors  had 
tails,  while  he  is  enjoying  his.  My  thoughts  are 
far  away  from  Baroda,  and  the  lizards  and  the 
monkey. 

I  see  John  P.  Shorter,  who  is,  let  us  say,  a 
stove  and  hardware  merchant  in  Kansas  City. 
He  has  breakfasted  on  fried  beefsteak,  fried  po- 
tatoes, hot  bread  and  coffee,  and  also  fish-balls, 
for  his  wife  has  a  strain  of  the  Brahman  blood  of 
New  England  in  her  veins.  He  has  on  his  un- 
comfortable Sunday  clothes.  His  wife  is  over- 
dressed, and  wears  a  hat  which  has  cost  a  dis- 
proportionate amount  of  the  monthly  income. 
The  children  look  stiffened  and  starched.  Their 
clothes  and  their  food,  and  what  will  be  thrown 
away  of  the  latter  by  the  Irish  servant-girl,  repre- 
sent the  revenue  of  a  whole  Indian  village  for  a 
month.  They  are  grumbling  at  the  high  cost  of 
living,  and  John  P.  mitigates  the  cost  of  his  wife's 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  271 

hat  by  denouncing  the  Trusts.  They  go  to  church, 
where  John  P.  has  a  pew  in  the  centre  aisle.  A 
small  silver-plated  name-plate,  with  "John  P. 
Shorter"  on  it,  marks  his  possession  of  a  pew  in 
the  sanctuary.  He  knows  everybody,  everybody 
knows  him.  There  are  few  or  no  strangers,  and 
all  belong  to  much  the  same  social  stratum  as  at 
a  club.  There  are  no  poor  or  friendless  or  un- 
kempt persons  present.  They  would  be  as  out 
of  place  here,  as  the  rabble  off  the  street  would 
be  in  the  front  ranks  of  a  military  parade. 

This  Occidental  arrangement  for  the  worship 
of  God,  is  financially  and  socially  much  the  same 
arrangement  as  obtains  at  a  theatre  of  the  better 
class.  It  reminds  one  of  the  stranger  who  joined 
in  the  anthem  at  a  service  at  Magdalen  College, 
Oxford.  The  verger  promptly  spoke  to  him  and 
told  him  he  was  not  to  sing.  "This  is  the  house 
of  God,"  he  replied,  "and  I  am  only  joining  in 
the  worship."  "House  of  God!"  repeated  the 
agitated  verger.  "House  of  God,  sir!'  Why,  this 
is  Magdalen  Chapel!"  Should  John  the  Bap- 
tist appear  at  the  portals  of  the  Second  Church 
of  Christ  in  Kansas  City,  the  sexton  would  be 
mortified. 

The  Second  Church  is  the  result  of  a  quarrel 
over  who  should  be  superintendent  of  the  Sunday- 
school  in  the  First  Church,  and  the  seceders  now 


272       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

have  a  church  of  the  same  faith,  but  to  them- 
selves. The  separation  has  left  both  the  congre- 
gations and  the  revenues  of  these  two  bodies,  who 
worship  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of  holiness,  rather 
lean,  but  the  religious  rivalry  adds  piquancy  to 
the  social  life  of  the  town,  and  nobody  is  offended 
apparently,  much  less  shocked,  by  this  open  rent 
in  the  garment  of  charity. 

This  is  Foreign  Missions  Sunday.  John  P. 
has  given  each  of  the  children  ten  cents,  and  his 
wife  fifty  cents,  and  has  provided  himself,  in  a 
convenient  pocket,  with  the  amount  which  he 
considers  his  position  in  the  church  and  in  the 
community  demands. 

Four  strikingly  and  modishly  dressed  persons, 
two  men  and  two  women,  in  a  gallery  behind  the 
pulpit,  where  their  latest  discoveries  in  collars, 
ties,  hats,  feathers,  and  blouses  are  ostentatiously 
and  perhaps  provocatively  displayed,  and  who 
are  paid  handsome  salaries  to  outdo  a  similar 
quartette  in  the  First  Church,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  voice  John  P.'s  praise  of  God  for  him, 
arise,  adjust  themselves  for  the  inspection  of  the 
audience,  and  strike  up: 

"From  Greenland's  icy  mountains 
From  India's  coral  strand 


They  call  us  to  deliver 

Their  land  from  error's  chain." 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  273 

They  go  on  to  proclaim  further,  do  these  ladies 
in  corsets,  in  open-work  blouses,  and  wearing 
high  heels,  false  curls  and  ear-rings,  and  gold  in 
their  teeth,  that: 

"The  heathen  in  his  blindness 
Bows  down  to  wood  and  stone," 

and  later  ask  with  due  emphasis  the  question : 

"Shall  we  whose  souls  are  lighted 
By  wisdom  from  on  high, — 
Shall  we  to  men  benighted 
The  lamp  of  life  deny?" 

John  P.  rises,  sets  his  glasses  on  his  nose,  and 
follows  the  words  in  his  hymn-book.  Mrs.  John 
P.  inspects  the  fashions  in  the  choir  and  about 
her,  and  by  a  natural  concatenation  of  thoughts 
drifts  away  to  that  alley-way  in  the  Waldorf  Ho- 
tel where  she  saw,  on  her  one  visit  there,  sartorial 
visions  that  have  never  been  forgotten.  After 
this  full-throated  invitation  to  Greenland,  and  to 
India,  and  to  Ceylon,  voiced  mainly  by  the  quar- 
tette of  hirelings,  to  come  into  the  fold  and  be  like 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  P.,  the  missionary  pleader  is 
presented  to  "my  people"  by  "our  beloved  pas- 
tor," whose  salary,  by  the  way,  is  two  months  in 
arrears. 

I  may  appear,  way  out  here  in  Baroda,  to  that 
monkey  in  the  tree  to  be  looking  at  him,  but  I  am 


274       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

not.  I  see  that  preacher  as  though  I  were  seated 
in  the  Second  Church  in  Kansas  City.  I  hear 
his  exaggerated  accounts  of  the  work  done,  and 
its  ever- increasing  success.  I  hear  the  anecdotes 
picked  for  the  occasion,  of  misery  and  want,  and 
a  longing  for  better  things  a  la  John  P.  Shorter ; 
of  the  rich  rulers  "bowing  down  to  wood  and 
stone,"  men  of  many  wives  and  many  pleasures, 
while  the  peasants  are  bowed  down  and  bent, 
and  burnt  brown  with  the  toil  and  heat. 

I  have  described  something  of  the  actual  situa- 
tion here  where  I  am  a  guest.  Only  yesterday 
afternoon  I  saw  a  Muhammadan  standing  at  sun- 
set on  a  block  of  stone  on  which  he  had  placed 
his  carpet,  in  a  busy  street  filled  with  Hindus 
coming  and  going,  saying  his  prayers  and  making 
repeated  obeisance  toward  Mecca.  His  religion 
is  not  only  different,  but  antagonistic  to  the  creed 
and  the  customs  of  the  Hindus,  but  in  Baroda  the 
Gaekwar,  a  Hindu  himself,  imposes  absolute  re- 
ligious tolerance.  I  ask  myself  what  would  hap- 
pen if  mass  were  said  daily  in  the  open  street  in 
Kansas  City. 

The  missionary  in  his  frock-coat  and  white  tie 
gets  hotter  and  hotter  in  this  furnace-heated  at- 
mosphere —  the  furnace  man  is  a  negro.  John 
P.,  despite  his  too  heavy  breakfast  of  fried  beef, 
smiles  benignly  as  he  hears  that  the  cow  is  sacred 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  275 

in  India,  and  almost  winks  at  the  superintendent 
of  the  stock  yards  whose  pew  is  across  the  aisle. 
Mrs.  John  P.,  somewhat  ansemic,  for  the  climate 
is  trying  in  Kansas  City,  is  glad  she  married 
John  P.,  as  she  listens  to  the  account  of  the  posi- 
tion of  women  in  India.  As  for  me,  I  shiver  to 
think  what  the  consensus  of  the  competent, 
granting  even  that  they  are  a  jury  of  Christians, 
would  say  if  they  were  called  upon  to  decide 
between  John  P.  and  the  Maharaja  Gaekwar  of 
Baroda.  If  there  is  any  such  heaven  as  John  P. 
sings  about,  and  hears  preached  about,  when  he 
gets  there  he  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  bright 
is  the  halo,  how  tuneful  the  harp,  and  how  el- 
evated the  position  of  some  of  these  heathen 
princes,  for  whose  conversion  he,  John  P.  Shorter, 
of  the  Second  Church  of  Christ,  in  Kansas  City, 
has  condescendingly  contributed  one  dollar! 

I  know  of  no  place  in  the  world  so  far  away 
from  New  York  as  Udaipur.  Udaipur  is  the  cap- 
ital of  the  native  State  of  Mewar,  ruled  over  by 
His  Highness,  the  Maharana  Dhiraj  Sir  Fateh 
Singh,  G.  C.  S.  I.,  and  has  some  twelve  thousand 
square  miles  of  territory,  a  population  of  a  little 
more  than  one  million,  and  revenues  of  about  six 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  Its  ruler  is 
the  premier  prince,  and  the  proudest,  in  all  India. 
His  authentic  ancestry  reaches  back  two  thou- 


276       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

sand  years,  and  stretches  on  beyond  that  in 
Indian  mythology,  to  the  progenitor  of  the  solar 
race,  the  deified  hero  Rama.  This  prince  bears 
to  the  world  of  Hinduism  a  relation  unique  either 
in  the  East  or  the  West.  He  is  part  Pope,  part 
High  Priest,  part  King.  He  may  even  interfere 
with  Brahmanical  excommunication;  and  at  his 
death,  men  who  would  die  rather  than  submit 
to  an  insult  to  their  beards,  shave  their  faces 
clean. 

There  is  no  suspicion  of  representative  govern- 
ment, no  dreams  even  of  the  rights  of  man,  no 
complications  of  electricity,  or  steam,  or  compul- 
sory education,  no  politics,  no  fantastic  hygiene, 
no  patent  foods,  no  fear  of  microbes,  no  fashions 
or  etiquette  of  a  date  later  than  728  A.  D.,  when 
the  history  of  the  present  State  under  the  present 
family  began  by  the  taking  of  the  fortress  of  Chi- 
tor  by  Bappa;  no  newspapers,  no  news,  except 
the  lazy  gossip  of  the  bazaars;  no  hurry  except 
when  news  is  brought  from  one  of  the  stations  in 
the  hills,  where  men  are  kept  day  and  night  the 
year  round  for  this  purpose,  that  a  black  panther 
or  a  tiger  has  been  seen,  then  the  Maha rana  and  a 
retinue  hasten  away;  no  daily  excitement  about 
an  earthquake  in  Japan,  a  revolution  in  Portugal, 
a  change  of  government  in  England,  a  panic  in 
New  York,  a  strike  in  Paris,  or  a  rhetorical  out- 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  277 

burst  in  Berlin;  no  jealousy  of  other  countries,  no 
envy  of  progress  elsewhere.  Why  should  there 
be,  since  their  ruler  is  little  less  than  a  god  to  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  Hindus,  and  to  criticise  his 
home,  his  habits,  and  his  decrees  is  unthinkable. 
Therefore  I  repeat  Udaipur  is  farther  from  the 
Bowery  than  any  other  place  in  the  world. 

It  was  a  happy  accident  of  travel  that  our  next 
visit  after  that  to  Baroda  was  to  this  prince,  who 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  modern  inventions 
whether  of  mind  or  matter. 

We  left  the  guest  house  at  Baroda  to  take  a 
train  leaving  at  5.18  a.  m.  The  train  was  late  and 
we  drove  back  to  wait.  We  returned  to  the  sta- 
tion an  hour  and  a  half  later;  the  train  was  still 
late,  and  we  finally  got  away  three  hours  and  a 
half  after  getting  out  of  bed,  and  twenty-nine 
hours  of  continuous  railway  travel  brought  us  to 
Udaipur.  This  is  one  example,  there  were 
many,  though  I  shall  not  cite  them,  which  bids 
me  again  warn  travellers  who  lack  enthusiasm,  a 
stout  heart,  and  a  strong  constitution,  and  the 
best  of  introductions,  that  a  visit  to  India  may 
prove  as  disappointing  to  them  as  it  was  delight- 
ful to  us. 

Udaipur  is  worth  all  the  fatigue  of  getting 
there.  We  were  driven  to  a  large  stone  bunga- 
low, of  which  we  were  the  sole  occupants.     A 


278       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

splendid  old  fellow,  gray-bearded,  with  medals 
on  his  breast  and  a  hunting-knife  in  his  belt, 
greeted  us  at  the  entrance,  and  put  himself  and 
the  household  at  our  service.  The  food,  the 
wines,  the  tobacco,  and  the  service  are  of  the  best, 
and  hearing  me  complain  of  lack  of  exercise,  the 
steward  provides  me  with  a  pony  for  a  ride  before 
breakfast  each  morning.  At  each  meal  he  stands 
in  the  dining-room,  with  an  eye  to  everything,  and 
from  morning  till  night  he  watches  over  our  com- 
fort as  though  we  were  his  children. 

In  the  afternoon  we  are  driven  to  the  lake, 
where  we  take  a  boat  and  are  rowed  to  its  south- 
ern end.  ^Ye  walk  up  a  path  to  find  ourselves  on 
a  high  terrace  looking  down  upon  a  dusty  plain 
where  hundreds  of  wild  pigs  are  grunting,  squeal- 
ing, quarrelling  as  they  are  fed.  Here  we  make 
our  bow  to  our  host.  He  had  just  come  in  from 
a  panther  hunt.  Every  afternoon  when  he  is  at 
home  he  is  present  at  the  feeding  of  these  wild 
boars.  He  was  standing  with  a  circle  of  his  cour- 
tiers behind  him,  and  a  mediaeval-looking  figure 
he  was,  a  sword  in  his  left  hand,  a  long  hunting- 
knife  in  his  belt,  and  those  about  him  all  in  hunt- 
ing tunics  and  boots.  He  was  a  slender,  wiry- 
looking  man  of  about  sixty,  well  preserved  and 
athletic,  with  nothing  of  the  pallid  hue  of  the 
puzzled   thinker  in   his   look,   and  a  deep  scar 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  279 

over  his  right  eye  due  to  a  fall  from  his  horse 
while  pig-sticking. 

We  bowed  and  shook  hands,  and  through  the 
interpreter  I  thanked  him  for  his  hospitality  to  us. 
I  was  somewhat  taken  aback  when  the  interpre- 
ter repeated:  "His  Highness  says  you  have  no 
hospitality  to  thank  him  for  since  you  have  only 
just  arrived."  This  seemed  an  attempt  to  put 
me  on  my  mettle,  so  I  turned  and  pointed  to  the 
lake  with  its  marble  palaces,  and  to  the  gleaming 
white  towers  of  the  huge  palace  overhanging  the 
lake,  and  said:  "Tell  His  Highness  that  one 
glimpse  of  this  is  a  thousand  years  of  hospitality." 
We  had  some  further  talk  about  horses  and  hunt- 
ing and  then  turned  to  go.  As  we  were  leaving, 
one  of  the  suite  came  after  us,  and  we  returned, 
when  the  interpreter  was  bidden  to  tell  me  that 
His  Highness  hoped  I  would  enjoy  my  stay,  that 
I  was  to  stay  as  long  as  I  liked,  and  that  he,  the 
interpreter,  was  commanded  to  see  to  it  that  we 
had  everything  we  wanted. 

He  is  a  conservative  of  the  conservatives,  this 
prince.  He  speaks  no  English,  lives  his  own  life, 
never  leaves  India,  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  new-fangled  notions  of  the  day,  is  an  enthusi- 
astic hunter  of  big  game,  has  killed  fifty  tigers,  be- 
sides panthers  and  other  game,  and  has  never 
been  photographed  while  doing  it,  and  is  simple 


280       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

and  dignified  in  his  demeanor.  There  was  an 
atmosphere  of  far-off,  by-gone  times  on  the  ter- 
race that  afternoon.  It  was  as  though  I  had 
dreamed  myself  back  into  the  Middle  Ages.  He 
and  his  customs  and  habits  and  opinions  are 
passing  away,  leaving  him  a  lonely  figure  in  a 
fussy  world,  but  he  remains  unmoved,  unchanged, 
disdainful.  Now  as  I  look  back  and  remember 
India,  he  stands  out  easily  as  the  first  gentleman 
there,  and  upon  the  whole  the  most  impressive 
figure  I  saw  in  all  the  East. 

When  he  heard  that  at  the  great  Durbar,  the 
Viceroy  was  to  ride  in  front,  and  on  the  elephant 
beside  him  was  to  ride  a  woman,  his  wife,  he 
declined  to  ride  behind  a  woman,  and  sent  his 
elephant,  gorgeously  caparisoned,  but  with  an 
empty  howdah.  In  these  days  when  every  man 
is  either  nursing  or  courting  a  constituency  of 
some  sort;  when  books  are  written,  and  news- 
papers are  printed,  and  speeches  are  made,  and 
sermons  are  preached  ever  with  an  eye  to  circu- 
lation or  popularity;  when  weighing  down  the 
words  and  thoughts  of  every  man's  brain,  except 
the  tiniest  minority,  is  the  dull  dead  weight  of 
its  possible  effect  upon  a  selfish  and  superficial 
mediocrity;  when  both  men  and  women  trim 
their  sails  shiveringly  at  the  bare  thought  of  being 
blacklisted  socially  or  politically  or  morally,  it  is 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  281 

refreshing,  it  is  even  awesome,  to  meet  a  man 
whose  only  constituency  is  his  own  soul!  I  am 
not  sure  that  we  may  not  take  steps  backward 
toward  Udaipur  ere  long,  before  we  take  many 
more  along  the  path  we  are  following.-  ^Ye  may 
have  better  sewers,  but  I  doubt  if  we  have 
more  moral  courage,  for  it  takes  some  moral 
courage  to  stand  up  to  the  empire  which  governs 
one  in  every  five  of  the  human  race,  and  more 
than  one  in  every  five  square  miles  of  the  habita- 
ble globe,  and  to  stand  alone.  But  the  British 
like  this  man  far  better,  I  make  no  doubt,  than 
those,  whether  from  India  or  from  any  other 
country,  who  bend  to  them,  agree  with  them, 
flatter  them,  and  who  mutilate  their  pride  to 
become  eunuchs  of  patriotism,  whose  capital  is 
Paris,  and  whose  creed  is  cosmopolitanism. 

As  we  were  rowed  back  the  length  of  the  lake, 
the  sun  was  going  down,  leaving  a  great  curtain 
of  dark  purple  as  a  background  for  the  palace. 
This  building  stands  on  the  crest  of  a  ridge  run- 
ning parallel  to  the  lake,  and  a  hundred  feet  above 
it,  its  granite  and  marble  are  all  of  one  whiteness, 
and  with  this  royal  background  it  looked  like  a 
palace  of  alabaster  with  carved  turrets  of  old 
ivory.  There  is  only  one  other  picture,  in  India, 
the  Taj,  which  bears  comparison  with  this  lake 
and  its  surroundings. 


282       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

The  city,  of  some  fifty  thousand  inhabitants,  is 
entirely  surrounded  by  a  bastioned  wall,  and  the 
palaces  old  and  new  within  make  a  town  of  them- 
selves. On  the  great  terrace  running  the  length 
of  the  old  palace,  where  the  Maharana  still  keeps 
his  own  apartments,  there  is  room  to  parade  the 
whole  army,  cavalry,  elephants,  and  all.  From  his 
windows  this  mediaeval  prince  can  look  out  into 
this  colossal  court-yard,  where  he  insists  upon 
the  old  ways,  and  so  we  saw  the  afternoon  we 
were  there,  as  you  may  see  any  other  afternoon, 
bullocks,  pigeons,  chickens,  elephants,  camels, 
geese,  all  sunning  themselves  in  lazy  contentment. 
As  we  drove  out  of  the  palace,  a  magnate  of  this 
small  kingdom  rode  in,  mounted  on  a  fine  horse, 
the  saddle  and  stirrup-straps  of  red  velvet,  and 
the  bridle  and  reins  of  some  red  stuff  as  well.  He 
himself  was  in  brilliant-colored  garments,  a  sword 
by  his  side,  pistols  in  his  belt,  and  there  followed 
and  surrounded  him  a  retinue  of  fifty  or  more, 
mounted  or  on  foot,  with  runners  on  ahead  to 
clear  the  way  for  them  through  the  crowded 
streets. 

These  were  delicious  days  we  spent  roaming 
over  the  palaces  and  gardens,  in  and  out  of  the 
temples,  and  through  the  sunny  streets  of  Udai- 
pur.  The  only  sad  spot  in  the  picture  was  our 
reception  by  the  son  and  heir  in  his  apartments. 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  283 

He  is  a  cripple,  shrunken  and  thin,  but  with  pleas- 
ant manners,  a  pathetic  smile,  and  a  little  Eng- 
lish at  his  command.  He  was  surrounded  by 
the  officers  of  his  household,  who  looked  stalwart 
indeed  beside  him,  and  it  was  evidently  a  real 
pleasure  to  him,  as  it  was  probably  a  rare  one,  to 
receive  strangers. 

I  remember  particularly  the  garden  palace 
so-called,  which  forms  a  part  of  the  old  palace, 
and  is  a  hanging  garden,  filled  with  flowers  and 
ferns,  and  palms  and  fountains,  and  with  exqui- 
sitely carved  pillars,  and  marble  walls  and  floors 
all  perched  on  a  part  of  the  flat  roof;  the  wonder- 
ful carving  of  the  marble  around  doors  and  win- 
dows; the  garden  of  the  court  ladies,  surrounded 
by  a  high  wall,  with  a  great  marble  swimming- 
bath  in  the  centre  and  filled  with  flowers  and 
shrubs ;  the  Hindu  temple  of  Jagannath  with  an 
elephant  on  each  side  of  the  long  flight  of  marble 
steps  leading  up  to  it,  and  every  inch  of  it  carved ; 
the  great  gateways  of  the  city,  the  Elephant  gate, 
the  Delhi  gate,  the  Moon  gate;  the  cenotaphs 
of  the  royal  family  for  generations  back,  en- 
closed by  a  high  wall  and  with  many  fine  trees, 
and  on  more  than  one  of  these  tombs  mention 
of  the  number  of  the  wives  who  burned  them- 
selves when  their  masters  died;  the  groups  on 
foot  or  on  horseback,  of  the  bewhiskered  gen- 


284       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

try,  for  even  in  a  land  where  the  beard  is 
everywhere  a  mark  of  manly  dignity,  the  Raj- 
put is  conspicuous  for  his  care  of  his  beard,  and 
by  tying  a  scarf  around  his  head  and  neck  he 
curls  out  the  ends  of  his  whiskers,  till  sometimes 
they  are  twisted  over  behind  his  ears,  lending  him 
a  dashing  appearance,  which  his  soldierly  bear- 
ing emphasizes ;  the  startling  appearance  of  gen- 
tlemen in  the  process  of  dying  their  beards  black 
with  henna,  for  during  the  interim  their  beards 
are  a  bright  orange  color,  which  gives  a  particu- 
larly fierce  frame  for  the  dark  faces  and  eyes; 
and  then  the  return  to  our  own  little  palace  with 
its  superb  view  of  lakes  and  hills,  and  our  cosey 
dinners  by  candle-light,  with  the  steward  watch- 
ing with  jealous  eye  every  movement  of  the  bare- 
footed and  turbaned  servants  who  attended  us; 
and  well  I  remember  one  morning  the  shrieks 
and  cries  in  our  court-yard  when  the  steward, 
well  over  the  age  when  most  men  enjoy  a  bout  at 
fisticuffs,  was  seen  giving  a  sound  beating  to  a 
rapscallion  who  had  maltreated  the  buffalo  that 
brought  us  the  skins  full  of  water  for  our  baths. 
"Where  could  a  man  go  for  a  holiday  where  he 
would  escape  more  completely  from  modernity, 
and  be  able  to  look  out  of  a  casement  set  in  the 
Middle  Ages  and  see  his  own  environment  in  per- 
spective; where  better  than  to  Udaipur  as  the 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  285 

guest  of  the  Maharana  ?  The  setting  is  there  in 
these  bewilderingly  beautiful  surroundings,  and 
surely  the  prince  is  there  as  a  seal  to  stamp  it  as 
genuine.  He  is  a  direct  descendant  of  the  Raj- 
puts of  Chitor.  They  were  conquered  by  the 
Mughals  as  were  the  other  Rajput  clans,  but  they 
fled  and  found  shelter  among  the  mountains  and 
deserts  of  the  Indus,  and,  unlike  the  others,  re- 
fused to  mingle  their  high-caste  Hindu  blood  even 
with  that  of  a  Muhammadan  emperor.  They 
still  boast  that  they  alone  among  the  great  Raj- 
put clans  have  never  given  a  daughter  in  mar- 
riage to  a  Mughal  emperor.  Their  motto  is  a 
fine  one:  "Who  steadfast  keeps  the  faith,  him 
the  Creator  keeps."  Certainly  the  present  ruler 
is  putting  it  to  the  test.  Long  life  and  success 
to  him,  say  I! 

The  Maharana' s  hospitality  guarded  us  even 
when  we  had  left  his  capital.  Four  hours  by 
train  brought  us  to  Chitorgah.  There  at  the  sta- 
tion an  elephant  and  a  tonga,  a  kind  of  two- 
wheeled  cart  drawn  by  ponies,  awaited  us  and  we 
were  taken  to  see  the  citadel  city  where  this  fam- 
ily have  ruled  and  fought  ever  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  eighth  century.  On  a  rocky  hill  over 
five  hundred  feet  high  is  the  great  fort  over  three 
miles  in  length.  In  the  old  tumultuous  days  the 
capital  city  of  Mewar  was  Chitor,  situated  in  this 


286       THE   WEST   IN  THE  EAST 

fort.  On  one  occasion,  after  a  siege  in  which 
eleven  royal  princes  were  killed,  all  the  women 
entered  an  underground  cave,  and  were  there 
burned  to  death,  and  as  the  smoke  and  flames 
arose  the  men  rushed  out  to  throw  themselves 
upon  the  swords  of  their  Muhammadan  enemies. 

The  whole  of  the  enclosure  at  the  top  is  covered 
with  the  ruins  of  palaces  and  temples.  The  two 
towers  of  Fame  and  Victory,  the  one  eighty  feet 
high,  the  other  in  nine  stories  and  one  hundred 
and  thirty  feet  high,  are  still  well  preserved.  This 
so-called  fortress  could  stow  away  the  hill  of  the 
Acropolis  in  one  corner  and  the  Roman  Forum 
in  another,  and  impresses  you  with  the  magnifi- 
cent scale  upon  which  these  people  carried  out 
their  building  operations.  How  this  place  was 
ever  captured,  with  its  sides  of  sheer  rock  reach- 
ing up  five  hundred  feet  from  the  plain  below, 
and  crowned  by  walls  so  thick  that  one  may 
drive  along  the  tops  of  them,  and  this  before  the 
days  of  cannon,  is  a  mystery,  a  mystery  even  to 
one  who  has  seen  Quebec  and  knows  its  story. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  station  at  Chitorgah, 
the  carriage  was  detached  from  the  train  and  left 
on  a  siding.  When  we  returned  to  it  from  the 
excursion  to  the  fort,  we  found  a  kitchen  estab- 
lished outside  the  carriage  door,  with  pots  and 
pans  and  dishes  and  charcoal  fires,  and  a  dinner 


HIS  HIGHNESS  THE  MAHARAJA  287 

of  several  courses  was  there  and  then  prepared 
and  handed  in  to  us.  I  was  asked  to  sign  a 
"chit"  or  voucher  for  it,  for  the  Maharana's 
treasurer,  but  that  I  refused  to  do.  It  was  Raj- 
put gallantry  indeed  to  extend  hospitality  to 
guests  so  long  as  they  remained  in  Rajput  terri- 
tory, but  we  drank  His  Highness' s  health  instead 
in  our  own  brew,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  the  car- 
riage was  attached  to  another  train  and  we  were 
off;  with  an  abiding  assurance  that  our  Indian 
hosts,  so  far,  had  nothing  to  learn  in  the  West  of 
fine  manners  and  generous  hospitality. 


VII 

BUNIA— PANI 

IT  would  be  easy  to  spend  a  year  in  India,  and 
never  hear  the  words  Bunia  or  Pani.  As  a 
guest  of  affable  officials,  of  native  princes; 
as  a  visitor  to  Delhi,  Agra,  Benares,  Amritsar, 
the  ruins  of  Akbar's  great  city  of  Fatehpur-Sikri, 
to  Bombay,  Lucknow,  and  Calcutta,  one  may 
hear  nothing  of  Bunia  and  Pani.  At  manoeuvres 
with  the  army,  at  the  great  meeting  of  the  con- 
tingents of  Imperial  Service  troops,  when  we 
were  all  the  guests  of  Her  Highness  the  Begum 
of  Bhopal;  shooting  or  pig-sticking  with  Indian 
or  British  potentates,  you  hear  nothing  of  Bunia 
or  Pani.  You  might  come  away  from  India 
thinking  that  the  Viceroy  and  his  brilliant  con- 
sort drove  about  in  splendid  equipages  with  out- 
riders, postilions,  and  a  mounted  body-guard; 
that  the  governors  of  Bombay,  and  Madras  did 
the  same  on  a  smaller  scale;  that  the  military 
and  civilian  officials  were  interested  mainly  in 
sport,  and  in  making  themselves  comfortable. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  each  and  every  one  of 

288 


BUNIA  —  PANI  289 

these  people,  from  His  Excellency  the  Viceroy 
down  to  the  last  recruit  to  the  civil  service,  is 
thinking  of  Bunia  and  Pani.  And  well  they 
may,  for  Bunia  and  Pani  are  the  two  great 
problems  in  India. 

You  must  tear  away  the  magnificence  and  the 
rags;  the  Imperial  etiquette  and  the  splendor  of 
the  native  princes;  you  must  stop  your  ears  to 
political  and  parliamentary  discussion ;  you  must 
forget  the  polite  European  essayist  who  writes 
of  his  holiday  in  India,  and  likewise  the  bitter 
fulminations  of  the  yeastily  educated  native  jour- 
nalist; and  you  must  study  Bunia  and  Pani, 
otherwise  you  leave  India  as  ignorant  as  when 
you  first  looked  at  a  map  of  that  vast  continent. 

Pani  means  water.  Bunia  is  the  name  for  the 
local  shopkeeper,  grain  merchant,  and  money- 
lender. 

Great  Britain  has  invested  capital  in  India  for 
its  commercial  and  industrial  development,  in- 
cluding the  employment  of  its  people,  to  the 
amount  of  $1,750,000,000.  One-tenth  of  the  en- 
tire trade  of  the  British  Empire  passes  through 
the  seaports  of  India,  and  this  sea-borne  trade  is 
more  than  one-third  of  the  trade  of  the  empire 
outside  of  the  United  Kingdom.  India  is  the 
largest  producer  of  food  and  raw  material  in 
the  Empire,  and  the  principal  granary  of  Great 


290       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Britain.  The  imports  into  the  United  Kingdom 
of  wheat,  meal,  and  flour  from  India  exceed  those 
of  Canada  and  are  double  those  of  Australia. 

It  is  said  that  the  hoarded  wealth  of  India, 
buried  in  the  ground,  stored  in  the  treasure- 
houses  of  the  native  princes,  and  in  the  jew- 
elry and  precious  stones  of  the  Indian  men 
and  women,  small  and  great,  amounts  to 
$1,800,000,000. 

Aside  from  the  strategical  importance,  what 
would  the  British  Empire  be  without  India,  and 
what  would  India  be  if  it  were  not  that  the  Vice- 
roy and  the  10,000  Europeans  and  the  1,500,000 
Indian  government  employees  under  him  keep 
Bunia  and  Pani  forever  in  mind! 

These  300,000,000  in  India  are  agriculturists. 
Water  for  their  fields  means  food  and  comfort; 
the  lack  of  it  means,  fever,  plague,  and  famine. 
And  when  fever,  and  plague,  and  famine  come 
in  India,  they  do  not  take  a  few  score,  or  a  few 
hundreds,  or  even  thousands;  they  kill  millions. 
In  1877  the  famines  in  southern  India  alone 
swept  away  over  five  millions  of  people;  and  a 
few  years  ago,  in  the  Punjab,  over  two  millions. 

When  we  hear  of  a  drought,  we  think  of  it  in  a 
hazy  way,  as  an  inconvenience  connected  with 
the  laundry,  the  bath-room,  or  the  garden;  or  at 
the  worst  a  mill  here  or  there  must  stop  work  for 


BUNIA  —  PANI  291 

a  week  or  two.  But  what  if  it  meant  death  by 
starvation  of  numbers  equal  to  the  whole  popu- 
lation of  Greater  New  York,  or  of  the  population 
of  the  whole  Western  division  of  States,  or  of  all 
New  England,  in  a  few  months!  That  is  what 
it  means  in  India.  How  little  we  know  of  the 
institutions,  the  codes,  the  religions,  the  obser- 
vances, the  problems,  the  troubles  of  other  peo- 
ples and  of  other  lands;  and  worse,  how  little  we 
care  even  when  we  are  undertaking  to  teach  and 
to  govern  them! 

"When  Mazarvan  the  Magician 

Journeyed  Westward  through  Cathay, 
Nothing  heard  he  but  the  praises 
Of  Badoura  on  his  way. 

"But  the  lessening  rumor  ended 
When  he  came  to  Khaledan, 
There  the  folk  were  talking  only 
Of  Prince  Camaralzaman. 

"So  it  happens  with  the  poets; 
Every  province  hath  its  own, 
Camaralzaman  is  famous, 
Where  Badoura  is  unknown." 

The  experience  of  Mazarvan  the  Magician 
is  the  experience  of  every  other  intelligent  trav- 
eller. It  was  with  eagerness  therefore  that  I  ac- 
cepted the  opportunity  to  see  Pani  and  Bunia  at 
close  quarters  where  "the  folk  were  talking  only" 
of  them. 


292       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

The  deputy-commissioner  of  a  certain  district 
in  the  Punjab  was  my  host.  He  was  about  to 
make  a  tour  of  inspection.  The  Punjab  has  an 
area  of  134,000  square  miles  and  a  population  of 
25,000,000.  Seven-eighths  of  this  total  popula- 
tion live  in  33,000  villages  with  an  average  popu- 
lation of  about  500.  Half  of  the  population  are 
Muhammadans;  6,000,000  are  Hindus;  5,000,- 
000  of  them  are  Jats,  and  these  Jats  are  half 
of  them  Muhammadan,  a  fourth  Hindu,  and  a 
million  Sikh  Jats,  and  they  own  half  the  land  in 
the  Punjab.  Jat  is  the  name  given  to  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Scythians  who  settled  in  India, 
and  whose  first  great  king  was  Kanishka. 

The  Punjab  is  divided  into  twenty-nine  dis- 
tricts each  in  charge  of  a  deputy  commissioner  or 
collector;  and  these  again  are  grouped  into  five 
divisions  each  under  a  commissioner.  Each  of 
these  districts  has  its  district  board  presided  over 
by  the  deputy-commissioner,  who  is  also  a  mag- 
istrate and  collector  of  the  district.  There  are 
some  1,500  members  of  these  boards,  of  whom 
600  are  elected.  They  are  responsible  for  local 
matters,  roads,  schools,  bridges,  hospitals,  dis- 
pensaries. In  the  large  towns  there  are  munic- 
ipal committees,  and  of  the  1,500  members 
nearly  1,200  are  non-officials,  and  they  control 
and  spend  over  $2,000,000  per  annum.     I   cite 


BUNIA  — PANI  293 

these  facts  not  to  bewilder  the  reader  with  details, 
but  to  show  how  the  British  Government  strives 
to  encourage  the  people  in  managing  their  own 
affairs.  In  the  larger  towns  the  members  of 
these  committees  show  some  interest;  but  the 
members  of  the  provincial  committees  take  little 
interest,  there  is  next  to  no  discussion,  and  the 
European  official  chairman  does  the  bulk  of  the 
work. 

The  commissioner  is  under  the  control  of  the 
financial  commissioner,  who,  under  the  lieuten- 
ant-governor of  the  Punjab,  is  the  head  of  the 
revenue  administration.  The  lieutenant-gov- 
ernor is  the  right  hand  of  the  Viceroy  in  the  Pun- 
jab. Each  district  with  its  deputy-commissioner 
is  divided  into  minor  divisions  called  Tahsils,  and 
a  Tahsil  as  a  rule  contains  two  to  four  hundred 
villages,  and  a  village  may  contain  fifty  huts, 
built  of  mud,  and  thatched  with  grass,  and  gene- 
rally containing  one  room,  with  sometimes  a 
space  enclosed  with  mud  walls,  where  household 
duties  are  performed,  where  odds  and  ends  are 
stored,  and  where  the  bullock  or  bullocks  are 
tethered  at  night. 

It  is  a  long  way  from  the  Viceregal  Lodge,  and 
the  Viceroy,  at  Calcutta,  to  this  hut  and  its  occu- 
pants in  the  Punjab,  but  they  are  closely  con- 
nected, as  we  shall  see,  and  it  is  one  of  the  glories 


294       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

of  the  British  administration  in  India  that  this 
connection  exists  and  is  maintained.  If  the  family 
in  that  hut  in  the  Punjab  is  stricken  with  fever,  or 
if  the  plague  stalks  in  among  them,  the  headman 
of  the  village  goes  to  the  dispensary,  the  official 
there  reports  to  Delhi,  Delhi  reports  to  Lahore, 
and  the  lieutenant-governor  there,  to  Calcutta. 
Almost  before  the  relatives  of  that  family  know 
what  has  happened,  they  know  in  Calcutta ;  and 
the  machinery,  with  its  net-work  of  living  wires 
which  spreads  over  India  like  a  vast  cobweb,  is 
put  in  motion  to  relieve  that  family  in  the  hut  in 
a  village  that  few  white  people  ever  see. 

The  deputy-commissioner,  his  young  assistant, 
and  I  rode  out  of  Delhi  early  one  morning  on  our 
way  to  the  first  camp.  We  were  not  many  miles 
from  Delhi  when  three  men  met  us  on  the  road. 
Each  held  in  his  hand  a  rupee,  which  he  offered 
to  the  deputy-commissioner  with  a  profound 
salaam;  this  was  touched  and  remitted,  this  be- 
ing the  old  sign  of  allegiance.  Thus  the  feuda- 
tories of  the  great  Mughals  showed  their  allegi- 
ance to  the  Emperor;  thus  the  great  native  chiefs 
to-day  offer  a  gold  piece  to  the  Viceroy,  or  to  the 
governor  of  the  province  to  which  they  belong; 
thus  the  headmen  of  these  villages  through  which 
we  passed  made  known  their  loyalty  to  the  great 
British  Raj,  represented  here  and  now  by  the 


BUNIA  — PANI  295 

deputy-commissioner.  Then  begins  a  rapid,  and 
sometimes  excited,  conversation  as  the  represent- 
atives of  the  village  walk  beside  us.  The  official 
replies  fluently  in  the  native's  own  tongue,  and 
the  expression  on  the  faces  shows  their  confid- 
ence in  his  self-control,  patience,  and  experience. 
They  know  little,  and  care  less,  about  legisla- 
tion, but  this  method  of  dealing  with  their  affairs 
they  both  understand  and  enjoy. 

It  is  of  the  affairs  and  condition  of  their  village 
that  they  talk.  One  complains  that  the  cattle 
from  a  neighboring  village  stray  into  the  fields 
and  destroy  the  crops;  another  that  three  hun- 
dred of  his  village  have  died  of  the  plague,  and 
there  are  not  enough  laborers  left  to  cultivate 
the  soil  and  pay  the  taxes ;  another  asks  that  the 
irrigation  canal  be  brought  nearer  to  his  village; 
another  retails  how  the  hail  has  spoilt  the  crops ; 
another  that  the  white  ants  have  destroyed  the 
wheat ;  another  that  members  of  the  Arya-Somaj 
are  preaching  sedition  among  the  villagers ;  one, 
and  what  a  relief  his  tale  must  have  been  to  my 
long-suffering  host,  says  that  the  taxes  of  his 
village  are  all  paid,  and  that  they  are  quite 
happy,  as  long  as  they  have  peace  and  safety 
"under  the  shadow  of  the  Protector  of  the  Poor." 

The  deputy-commissioner  is  as  patient  and 
polite  to  them  as  he  is  to  me,  when  after  leaving 


296       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

one  after  another  of  these  groups,  I  begin  a  rapid 
fire  of  questions.  Every  now  and  again  he  de- 
cides to  see  for  himself  the  situation  in  this  or  that 
village,  and  we  set  off  at  a  brisk  canter,  leaving 
the  main  road  to  make  for  the  village  in  question. 
They  are  all  much  the  same,  though  differing  in 
population.  Fifty  or  more  mud  huts,  with  the 
refuse  stored  in  the  compound  of  each,  which  is 
intended  for  manure,  or  fuel ;  and  the  interior  of 
the  hut  cleaner  than  I  expected,  for  the  walls  and 
floors  are  covered  with  a  mixture  of  mud  and  cow 
dung,  which  seems  to  be  a  cleanly ,  as  it  is  a  favorite 
form  of  whitewashing,  since  I  saw  it  also  used  in 
the  cavalry  lines  in  many  parts  of  India.  Near 
the  village  is  the  so-called  pond,  a  shallow  place 
filled  with  stagnant  water  in  which  pigs,  ducks, 
geese,  cattle,  and  mosquitoes  share  and  share 
alike.  There  are  the  village  wells,  some  for  high- 
caste,  some  for  low-caste  people;  the  village 
temple  with  its  sacred  tree,  the  peepul  tree,  is 
there;  the  council  tree  also,  under  which  the 
leaders  of  public  opinion  smoke  their  pipes  of 
an  evening;  there  are  the  shops  in  the  principal 
street  with  the  proprietor  squatting  beside  his 
open  bags  of  salt,  sweetmeats,  grains  and  spices, 
these  latter  covered  with  flies  and  hornets  and 
wasps;  another  sells  brass  and  iron  and  bell- 
metal  cooking  utensils  and  water-jars;  there  are 


BUNIA  —  PANI  297 

the  potters,  and  I  see  for  the  first  time,  and 
understand,  the  Bible's  potter's  thumb  and  pot- 
ter's wheel. 

"For  I  remember  stopping  by  the  way 
To  watch  the  potter  thumping  his  wet  clay; 

And  with  its  all-obliterated  tongue 
It  murmured — Gently,  Brother,  gently  pray!" 

I  see  the  wheelwright  building  those  awkward- 
looking  carts  which  I  have  admired  and  won- 
dered at  as  they  bumped  their  way  unbroken 
over  awful  roads.  They  are  made  of  wood,  bam- 
boo, and  string.  They  can  give  at  every  joint. 
That  is  the  secret  of  their  resistance.  I  see  the 
shed  where  the  children  are  taught;  and  in  a  few 
of  the  villages  they  are  crushing  the  sugar-cane, 
boiling  sugar,  and  doing  well  with  the  sale  of  it, 
coarse  as  it  is.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the 
streets  are  not  paved,  and  you  walk  ankle-deep 
in  mud  or  dust;  and  goats,  water-buffaloes,  and 
sacred  bulls  have  the  same  privileges,  the  sa- 
cred bulls  rather  more,  than  you.  None  of  the 
dogs  seems  to  have  owners,  each  is  out  for  him- 
self and  the  devil  take  the  hindermost;  and  at 
night  they  and  the  jackals  sing  rival  choruses. 
The  men  and  children  follow  you  about  sol- 
emnly curious;  the  women,  with  bare  legs  and 
arms  and  shoulders,  cover  their  faces  as  you  pass, 
not  as  we  think  from  modesty  wholly,  but  be- 


298        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

cause  it  is  considered  an  impertinence  to  look  at 
us  boldly.  One  or  two  of  the  houses  are  more 
pretentious;  they  have  two  stories,  a  tiled  roof, 
and  a  court-yard,  and  the  proprietor  owns  bul- 
locks and  even  a  pony.  This  is  the  home  of  the 
Bunia.  He  buys,  and  sells,  and  lends  money. 
He  is  the  Hindu  Shylock. 

A  Hindu  will  spend  a  year's  income  on  a  mar- 
riage feast  for  his  daughter.  It  is  one  of  the 
Hindu  social  laws  obeyed  among  them,  as  are 
similar  laws  among  us,  with  toil,  sacrifice,  and  ex- 
travagance; and  with  far  more  attention  to  de- 
tail than  the  moral  law  or  the  behests  of  religion. 
It  is  then  that  the  native  mortgages  his  fields,  his 
crops,  his  everything,  to  provide  a  feast  suitable 
to  what  he  considers  his  station.  He  buys  whis- 
tles just  as  we  do,  that  we  do  not  want,  that  do  not 
whistle,  or  that  give  forth  false  and  discordant 
notes;  because  his  little  social  world  has  made  it 
the  fashion.  He  could  live  very  well,  just  as  we 
could,  if  we  only  bought  what  we  liked,  and  what 
we  needed,  but  Heera  Lall  goes  bankrupt,  just 
as  Mr.  Climber  and  Mr.  Splurge  do,  buying  what 
they  do  not  want  in  the  way  of  whistles,  to  play 
tunes  that  nobody  cares  particularly  to  hear. 

Then  the  Bunia  lends  at  twenty  and  fifty  per 
cent  and  even  more.  The  crops  do  not  even 
pay  the  interest,  let  alone  the  taxes;  and  Heera 


BUNIA  — PANI  299 

Lall  is  soon  in  the  hands  of  the  Jews,  and  labors 
from  sunrise  till  sunset  on  the  land  which  is  no 
longer  his.  In  years  of  poor  crops,  or  when  the 
peasant  is  sick  or  otherwise  incapacitated,  again 
the  Bunia  appears,  not  only  as  a  lender,  but 
tempting  him  to  buy  on  credit. 

A  parental  government  has  stepped  in  to  pro- 
tect the  small  land-owners;  there  are  3,000,000 
of  them  here  in  the  Punjab  alone.  The  new  Land 
Alienation  Act  provides  that  no  mortgage  can  be 
given  for  more  than  fifteen  years,  and  the  money- 
lender is  not  allowed  to  purchase  except  by  per- 
mission. Sales  are  only  allowed  between  agri- 
culturists, or  where  by  the  sale  of  part  the  whole 
is  redeemed.  Taxes  are  often  remitted  in  years 
of  bad  crops,  in  whole  or  in  part;  and  the  gov- 
ernment lends  money,  at  a  low  rate  of  interest, 
to  poor  communities  to  buy  seed  or  cattle.  This 
law  for  the  protection  of  these  helpless  agricult- 
urists, and  there  are  250,000,000  of  them  here  in 
India,  was  bitterly  opposed  by  native  babus, 
lawyers,  money-lenders,  and  the  leaders  in  the 
movement  for  representative  government.  Peace 
and  quiet  and  prosperity  have  made  land  valua- 
ble in  India;  hence  the  intriguing  to  get  pos- 
session of  it.  We  know  something  of  the  land 
shark  in  America;  one  needs  little  imagination  to 
picture  what  would  happen  if  he  had  his  way  in 


300     the  ^t:st  in  the  east 

India.  In  a  few  years  the  land  would  be  in  the 
hands  of  a  few,  and  the  rest  would  be  serfs.  The 
government  that  brought  Pani  to  India's  fields, 
and  a  strong  hand  to  control  India's  Bunias, 
brought  salvation. 

No  man  has  the  smallest  right  to  pronounce 
an  opinion  upon  British  rule  in  India,  until  he 
has  seen  the  water  trickling  painfully  through  its 
fields,  and  the  Bunia  straining  at  the  tether  that 
keeps  him  in  check.  Here  is  the  real  problem, 
other  matters  are  froth  compared  to  it. 

It  is  bewildering  to  find  that  there  is  a  society 
in  America  which,  with  words  and  money,  en- 
deavors to  upset  the  British  rule  in  India;  more 
bewildering  still  to  find  members  of  this  society 
in  America,  and  labor  leaders  in  England,  taking 
sides  in  India  with  the  blood-sucking  Bunia  and 
the  agitators  who  support  him.  Nothing  but 
dense  ignorance  can  explain  it,  unless  it  be  that 
morbid  craving  for  notoriety  which  leads  the  critic 
to  rush  into  any  convenient  dusty  room,  waving 
a  cloth  about  his  head,  careless  of  what  becomes 
of  the  dust,  so  long  as  he  occupies  the  centre  of 
the  room.  Many  rooms  are  dusty  in  all  our  civ- 
ilizations, and  the  only  way  to  clean  them  is  with 
a  damp  cloth,  and  quietly,  and  a  little  at  a  time. 
But  the  demagogue,  and  the  agitator,  scoff  at 
such  methods ;  first  because  such  methods  call  for 


BUNIA  — PANI  301 

work,  and  care,  and  study;  and  secondly  because 
such  work  must  be  done  quietly.  What  does 
Cleon  care  for  such  a  job  as  that!  Let  there  be 
strikes  in  England,  famine  and  bloodshed  in 
India,  panics  and  excitement,  and  distress,  in 
America,  so  long  as  Cleon  occupies  the  centre 
of  the  stage  for  a  brief  moment,  enjoying  that 
delicious  notoriety  to  which  all  else  is  sub- 
ordinated. 

We  have  ridden  fifteen  or  twenty  miles.  It  is 
getting  hot  and  dusty,  when  we  see  the  glimmer 
of  tents,  the  smoke  of  fires,  groups  of  camels,  and 
attendants  and  servants,  and  we  have  reached 
camp.  My  tent  measures  thirty  feet  by  twenty; 
it  is  carpeted  with  rugs,  has  a  dressing-room  with 
tub,  wash-stand,  and  other  necessaries.  There  is 
a  writing-table  and  an  easy  chair.  Your  clothes 
are  laid  out,  the  hot  bath  is  ready;  and  shaved, 
and  bathed,  and  in  light  clothes,  you  are  ready 
for  breakfast. 

There  is  a  mess-tent,  the  deputy-commissioner's 
office-tent  and  living-tent,  the  assistant's  tent, 
and  all  is  ready  even  to  the  pencils,  pens,  and 
blotters  arranged  on  the  office  table.  After 
breakfast  the  deputy-commissioner  retires  to  his 
office,  and  one  after  another,  singly  and  in  groups, 
citizens  and  village  officials  appear  with  their 
troubles,    complaints,    disputes,    and    business. 


302       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

Hour  after  hour  he  listens,  questions,  decides, 
and  patches  up  differences. 

Court  is  held  out  here  as  in  Delhi.  A  pictu- 
resque group,  witnesses,  prisoners,  attorneys, 
police  are  squatting,  or  standing,  around  the  door 
of  the  assistant's  tent;  and  for  two  hours  or  more 
he  deals  with  a  case  of  the  theft  of  clothes  from 
one  woman  by  another.  The  clothes  of  the 
whole  party  would  scarcely  bring  a  dollar  at 
auction,  I  should  guess;  but  here  as  in  Bombay, 
or  in  Calcutta,  justice  holds  sway,  and  the  low- 
liest may  claim  and  receive  protection. 

After  five  hours'  work  or  more,  we  are  off  on 
our  ponies,  led  by  some  of  the  sportsmen  of  the 
village,  and  one  evening  we  returned  with  a  bag 
which  included  duck,  hare,  rabbits,  a  species  of 
Indian  grouse,  and  a  deer.  We  dress  and  dine, 
and  dine  well,  and  after  a  chat  and  a  smoke,  to 
bed.  The  sounds  are  strange;  the  gurgling  of 
the  loose-lipped  camels,  the  cries  of  the  jackals 
and  yelping  of  the  pariah  dogs,  the  raucous  cry 
of  the  peacocks,  the  chattering  of  monkeys  and 
perroquets;  then  for  a  time  the  noise  and  bustle 
of  loading  protesting  camels  and  getting  under 
way. 

There  is  a  duplicate  set  of  tents,  and  each 
night  at  about  eleven  all  but  our  sleeping-tents, 
and  the  bare  necessities  of  the  morning  toilet, 


BUNIA  —  PANI  303 

are  loaded  on  the  camels  and  set  off  for  another 
camp;  those  we  leave  behind  in  the  morning  go 
on,  not  to  the  next  camp,  but  to  the  camp  after 
that,  so  that  each  day,  after  our  three  or  four 
hours'  ride,  we  find  the  camp  set  and  ready  for 
us,  and  litigants,  questioners,  quarrellers,  and 
many  who  come  merely  to  pay  their  respects, 
warned  beforehand  of  our  coming,  are  there, 
waiting  the  arrival  of  the  "Protector  of  the  Poor," 
as  my  host  is  often  called,  and  as  he  is,  for  that 
I  can  vouch  from  daily  personal  observation. 

At  one  of  these  camps  there  appears  Rai 
Bahadur,  a  title  conferred  upon  him  by  govern- 
ment, Chandri  Rughnath  Singh.  He  is  what 
might  be  called  a  country  gentleman  in  a  small 
way.  He  owns  land,  he  is  a  magistrate  of  the 
second  class,  and  he  is  the  head  and  representa- 
tive of  a  certain  group  of  villages  and  is  called  a 
Zaildar.  At  the  request  of  the  deputy-commis- 
sioner he  shows  me  nearly  a  dozen  medals  and 
one  order  given  to  his  grandfather,  his  father, 
and  to  himself  for  meritorious  services  as  soldiers 
in  the  native  army.  There  is  a  mutiny  medal 
and  two  medals  for  services  with  Lord  Roberts 
among  them.  I  was  glad  to  meet  him.  He  is 
the  other  side  of  the  shield,  and  poles  apart  from 
the  restless  and  discontented  Bengali.  He  is  a 
stanch  believer  in  British  rule,  has  fought  as  a 


304       THE   ^YEST   IN  THE   EAST 

soldier,  and  now  works  as  a  good  citizen,  bearing 
his  share  of  the  common  burden,  modest,  unas- 
suming, and  efficient.  He  accompanies  us  part 
way  on  our  next  day's  journey,  and  is  evidently 
as  respected  by  the  natives  we  meet  as  he  is  by 
my  host. 

This  title  of  Zaildar  leads  to  an  explanation. 
The  unit  of  the  revenue  administration  in  India 
is  the  estate  or  Mahal  which  is  usually  identical 
with  the  village  or  Mauza.  Each  district  is  di- 
vided into  several  Tahsils  and  a  Tahsil  includes 
from  two  to  four  hundred  of  these  villages.  Each 
Tahsil  has  a  separate  land  revenue  assessment. 
Each  village  is  represented  by  one  or  more  head- 
men or  Lambardars.  The  villages  again  are 
grouped  together  into  Zails,  by  bonds  of  histori- 
cal or  tribal  associations,  or  common  interests, 
and  these  Zails  are  represented  by  a  Zaildar,  ap- 
pointed by  the  deputy-commissioner,  from  among 
the  headmen  of  the  different  villages.  Each  vil- 
lage too  has  its  Patwari  or  village  accountant,  we 
should  call  him  the  town  clerk,  who  keeps  the 
books  for  revenue  purposes.  He  records  mort- 
gages, keeps  the  record  of  the  land-owners,  of 
changes  of  ownership,  of  assessments  and  of 
boundaries,  and  other  matters  pertaining  to  his 
office.  Thus  there  is  a  chain  from  each  little  vil- 
lage and  from  each  dweller  therein,  up  to  the 


BUNIA  — PANI  305 

financial  commissioner  himself.  It  is  an  admi- 
rable system,  adopted  from  the  Mughal  emperors 
by  the  British,  with  changes  and  improvements, 
and  kept  going  by  these  deputy-commissioners 
and  their  assistants,  and  at  the  same  time  checked 
by  them  by  the  method  I  am  now  seeing,  of 
travelling  through  the  country  and  keeping  in 
touch  with  the  people  themselves.  Whatever 
else  may  happen,  these  few  officials  must  keep 
themselves  fit  for  their  arduous  and  never-ending 
duties.  Seldom  do  they  ask  for  or  receive  an 
Aegrotat;  and  as  a  body  they  seem  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  they  will  receive  little  praise  and 
less  recognition  for  their  services;  and  yet  no 
body  of  men  in  the  British  Empire  is  doing  so 
much  to  keep  their  empire  together  and  in  peace. 

Besides  the  revenue  tax,  each  headman  gets 
five  per  cent  for  collecting  from  his  village,  and 
also  eight  and  one-fourth  per  cent  is  set  aside  for 
various  village  needs.  Not  only  do  these  land 
revenue  methods  keep  the  people  constantly  in 
touch  with  the  officials,  but  in  addition  there 
are  the  schools,  the  police,  the  medical  depart- 
ments, all  again  with  representatives  in  every 
village,  so  that  the  smallest  and  most  far-away 
community  is  cared  for. 

Although  each  of  these  small  proprietors,  there 
are  3,000,000  of  them  here  in  the  Punjab,  owns 


306       THE   ^^ST  IN  THE   EAST 

his  land,  he  owns  it  only  as  the  tenant.  The 
landlord  in  the  old  days  was  the  Mughal  Em- 
peror, and  in  these,  is  the  British  King-Emperor. 
A  share  of  the  profits  from  the  land  belongs  to 
the  ruler,  by  the  traditions  of  centuries.  The 
total  revenue  of  India  is  roughly  $240,000,000. 
Of  this  $91,000,000  are  raised  by  taxation  which 
includes  an  excise  tax  on  salt,  spirituous  liquors, 
and  drugs,  and  a  customs  duty  averaging  about 
five  per  cent;  about  $46,000,000  from  state 
profits;  and  $100,000,000  from  revenue  from  the 
state's  share  in  the  land.  The  taxation  is  less 
than  forty-four  cents  per  head  of  the  population, 
and  even  when  the  land  revenue,  which  as  we 
have  seen  is  really  rent,  is  included,  it  is  less 
than  seventy-eight  cents.  The  system  of  self- 
government  in  these  villages  and  towns  has 
been  pushed  as  far  as  can  be  with  due  regard 
to  efficiency.  There  are  750  municipalities  in 
India  which  administer  the  affairs  of  17,000,000 
people,  and  of  the  10,000  official  members  8,700 
are  natives,  and  they  dispense  an  income  of  over 
$30,000,000.  There  are  1,100  local  boards, 
charged  with  the  care  of  village  education,  sanita- 
tion, roads,  and  other  civil  works,  which  dispense 
$20,000,000  a  year;  and  of  these  an  even  larger 
proportion  of  the  members  are  natives.  The  de- 
mands of  the  state  for  its  share  of  the  profits  of 


BUNIA  — PANI  307 

the  land  are  revised  at  recurring  periods  of  from 
ten  to  thirty  years.  In  Bengal  alone  the  demand 
of  the  state  was  fixed  in  perpetuity  by  Lord 
Cornwallis  in  1793.  The  state  has  lost  millions 
in  consequence.  British  improvements  have  in- 
creased both  the  value  of  the  lands  and  of  the 
crops,  but  only  the  proprietors  profit. 

These  are  dry  bones,  these  figures,  but  the 
reader  who  has  a  dim  notion  that  India  to-day  is 
governed  by  a  little  knot  of  Englishmen  must  be 
told  to  what  a  very  large  extent  these  English- 
men have  turned  over  the  responsibilities  of  gov- 
ernment to  the  Indians  themselves,  and  at  what 
small  cost  per  head  of  population  this  govern- 
mental machinery  is  run. 

During  the  hours  when  my  host  is  at  work  in 
his  office  tent,  I  prowl  about  in  the  neighboring 
villages,  talking  to  school-masters,  town-clerks, 
shopkeepers,  and  the  laborers  in  the  fields.  In 
one  village  the  Patwari  or  town-clerk  shows  me 
his  books,  his  maps  of  the  village  lands,  and  we 
walk  over  to  a  certain  field,  and  he  points  out  on 
the  linen  map  its  boundaries,  and  then  turns  to  his 
books  and  shows  me  the  names  of  the  family  who 
own  it,  and  their  ancestors,  and  the  liens  upon 
it.  In  some  of  these  villages  there  are  genea- 
logical tables  which  trace  back  the  descent  of 
each  man  for  ten  or  even  twenty  generations. 


308       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

It  may  be  puzzling  to  read,  but  it  is  clear 
enough  when  you  stand  in  the  field  and  see  the 
owner  and  his  son,  drawing  water  in  the  leathern 
bucket  with  their  bullocks,  walking  slowly  up  and 
down  the  ramp;  when  you  hear  the  Patvxiri  tell 
how  the  owner  came  to  be  the  owner;  what  the 
amount  of  the  mortgage  is,  how  much  the  govern- 
ment has  remitted  on  account  of  a  bad  year,  how 
much  has  been  paid  back,  and  how  much  is  still 
owing;  how  much  that  new  well  cost,  and  how 
much  the  government  advanced  toward  its  build- 
ing; how  much  the  crop  from  that  field  in  which 
you  are  standing  generally  fetches,  and  what  pro- 
portion is  paid  in  taxes;  whether  that  particular 
peasant  proprietor  is  industrious  and  economical 
or  not;  how  many  children  he  has,  and  what  it 
costs  him  to  live. 

You  find  that  he  and  his  family  live  upon  the 
produce  of  his  own  land.  The  corn  is  ground 
into  flour  in  his  own  house  by  the  womenfolk; 
the  pulse,  spices,  and  occasional  vegetables  come 
from  his  own  fields;  even  the  tobacco  he  smokes, 
and  the  hemp  he  uses  for  ropes,  are  grown  by 
himself.  What  little  lie  sells  is  for  money  to  pay 
taxes,  buy  clothes,  and  perhaps  to  pay  wages 
when  he  needs  additional  labor.  Tlis  cattle  are 
for  milk  or  work  in  the  fields,  for  he  may  not 
use  them  for  food,  his  caste  forbidding  this.     In 


BUNIA  —  PAN!  309 

the  winter  he  and,  so  it  appears  to  the  visitor  in 
India,  all  the  rest  of  the  Indian  population,  are 
chewing-  sugar-cane;  in  the  summer  the  fruit  of 
the  mango  tree  is  equally  popular.  When  you 
attempt  to  draw  him  into  conversation  on  the 
subject  of  even  the  most  elementary  politics  you 
find  him  puzzled  and  uninterested.  He  is  not 
only  not  demanding  "elective  institutions,"  but 
he  does  not  know  what  they  are,  and  the  read- 
ing of  a  stray  news  sheet  in  the  vernacular  to 
him,  by  one  of  his  more  learned  neighbors, 
leaves  him  dazed  and  bewildered.  A  voluble 
place-hunter,  orating  to  him  of  his  rights  and 
privileges,  leaves  him  impassive  and  undisturbed. 
The  policeman,  the  headman  of  his  village,  the 
sight  occasionally  of  a  Zaildar,  or  a  European 
official,  are  all  he  knows  of  authority.  He 
sleeps  peacefully  in  the  traditions  that  have 
filtered  to  him  through  centuries,  and  would 
be  happy  indeed  if  he  could  control  Pani  and 
escape  Bunia. 

You  have  your  ear  against  the  real  heart  of 
India  out  there,  and  you  hear  it  beating.  This 
is  the  heart  of  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  India. 
What  you  heard  in  Parliament;  what  you  heard 
from  the  politicians  in  London;  what  you  heard 
from  lawyers  and  editors  in  Bombay  and  Calcutta, 
and  from  teachers  and  preachers  in  Aligarh  and 


310       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

Benares,  and  from  missionaries  everywhere,  is 
diagnosis,  is  theory,  is  the  dreaming  of  the  scio- 
list, or  the  bitter  envy  of  the  Brahman.  It  is 
here,  with  Pani  gurgling  beneath  your  feet,  with 
the  tiles  of  the  Bunias  house  overtopping  the 
mud  huts  of  the  village,  in  plain  view,  with  the 
Patwaris  linen  map  spread  out  before  you,  that 
you  can  put  your  fingers  on  India's  wrist  and 
know  something  of  the  patient's  condition. 

The  word  "Delirium"  comes  from  two  Latin 
words:  "De,"  meaning  "from,"  and  "Lira," 
meaning  "furrow."  Etymologically,  a  man  in 
delirium  is  one  who  leaves  the  furrow,  who 
ploughs  crookedly,  who  gets  out  of,  and  away 
from  his  field.  The  city-bred  man  may  well 
ponder  the  ancestry  of  this  word.  The  stirrers- 
up  of  the  man  working  placidly  in  the  fields  will 
find  more  hysteria,  more  delirium  in  the  towns 
and  cities  than  in  the  fields  and  their  furrows. 
Here  in  India,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  not 
as  true  elsewhere,  the  patient's  pulse  beats  more 
steadily,  more  quietly  in  the  furrow,  than  when 
leaving  the  plough  and  the  fields  he  becomes 
giddy  in  the  streets  and  bazaars  of  the  town. 
At  any  rate  it  is  true  that  even  in  our  great  new 
cities  of  the  West,  there  are  few  leaders,  in  what- 
ever realm  of  activity,  who  are  not  themselves, 
or  whose  immediate  ancestors  are  not,  countrv- 


BUNIA  —  PANI  311 

bred.  Two  or  three  generations  are  about  all 
that  any  family  can  survive  of  city  life.  Back 
to  the  land  is  a  modern  cry,  but  it  is  as  old  as 
language;  it  is  the  exact  opposite  in  meaning  to 
"Delirium." 

The  English  official  is  not  only  doing  his  duty 
in  making  these  pilgrimages  through  the  land, 
but  he  is  adapting,  for  purposes  of  his  own,  meth- 
ods that  are  as  old  as  India.  The  Durbar  is, 
with  the  exception  of  certain  religious  customs, 
the  oldest,  most  respected,  and  the  most  funda- 
mental of  all  Oriental  institutions.  Briefly,  the 
Durbar  means :  the  right  of  the  subject  to  make, 
and  the  necessity  of  the  ruler  to  receive  and  to 
hear,  petitions  in  public.  The  Durbar  halls  that 
one  sees  everywhere  in  India  are  the  monuments 
of  the  theory  of  justice  which  obtains  everywhere 
in  the  East,  and  which  is  so  imbedded  in  the 
Oriental  mind  that  it  is  wellnigh  impossible  to 
uproot  it.  All  his  rulers  of  whatever  race,  and 
however  despotic,  from  Kanishka  to  Akbar  and 
Aurangzeb,  have  held  Durbars,  often  daily 
Durbars,  and  no  one  of  them  would  have  dared 
to  neglect  or  do  away  with  them. 

The  Oriental  is  a  religious  man.  He  believes 
in  the  ways  of  God  with  men ;  he  believes  it  so  gen- 
uinely that  he  would  make  it  part  and  parcel  of 
his  life  here.     He  therefore  prefers  a  ruler  who 


312       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

is  omniscient  and  omnipotent,  who  is  both  judge 
and  executioner.  He  demands  the  right  to  be 
heard  in  public,  to  receive  an  answer  on  the  spot, 
and  to  have  the  decree  of  the  judge  executed  at 
once.  If  he  is  to  lose  his  life,  or  his  property,  or 
his  office,  or  if  he  is  to  deprive  another  of  life, 
property,  or  office,  that  seems  to  him  the  simplest 
and  fairest  way  to  do  it.  Although  the  emper- 
ors of  India  were  in  a  sense  despots,  as  are,  and 
have  been,  all  Eastern  riders,  in  that  they  had 
the  power  of  life  and  death,  they  never  have 
been  despots  in  the  sense  that  their  subjects  had 
not  access  to  them,  and  demanded  it  and  re- 
ceived it  as  a  right. 

The  Oriental  mind  has  no  conception  of  equal- 
ity between  men.  Even  in  matters  of  justice, 
he  dislikes  rules  of  procedure,  laws  of  evidence. 
He  prefers  that  the  matter  should  be  settled  face 
to  face  between  himself  and  the  ruler.  As  he 
sacrifices  to  his  gods,  and  does  penance  and  gives 
gifts  that  he  may  be  well  treated  by  them,  so  like- 
wise he  sees  not  justice  but  only  injustice  in  being 
deprived  of  the  opportunity  to  give  gifts,  to  use 
cunning,  to  bring  social  or  political  pressure  to 
bear  upon  the  man  who  is  to  judge  him.  He  does 
not  scout  at  equality,  he  does  not  even  know  what 
it  means.  He  sees  on  every  hand  that  men  differ 
in  ability,  in  wealth,  and  in  influence;  and  he 


BUNIA  —  PANI  313 

wishes  to  use  such  superiority  as  he  has,  and  be- 
lieves in  the  same  privilege  for  other  men,  even 
in  the  courts,  and  before  his  judge,  and  with 
his  ruler.  He  cannot  understand  that  superior 
standing  in  the  community  is  of  any  value,  unless 
it  can  be  used  even  in  the  courts  for  his  own  ad- 
vantage. This  is  a  religion  in  the  East;  we  con- 
sider such  an  attitude  criminal  in  the  West.  But 
how  many  rich  murderers  are  hanged ;  how  many 
rich  thieves  are  imprisoned;  how  many  powerful 
political  bribers  are  punished,  in  America  ?  I 
am  not  sure  that  any  of  us  really  care  for  justice. 
I  notice  that  even  religion  tempers  justice  with 
divine  grace,  and  that  the  best  human  nature 
everywhere  tempers  justice  with  love. 

The  Western  man  believes  in  himself,  not  in 
God.  He  hedges  every  authority  with  rules  and 
laws  and  regulations.  Each  man,  whether  judge, 
or  executive,  or  representative,  is  made  responsi- 
ble to  some  one  else.  There  is  always  an  appeal 
to  somebody  else.  The  responsibility  goes  in  a 
circle,  from  the  citizen  to  the  magistrate,  from 
the  magistrate  to  the  court,  from  that  court  to  the 
next,  thence  to  Congress  itself,  and  thus  back  to 
the  citizen  again.  Men  trust  God,  when  they 
believe  in  Him,  but  they  do  not  trust  men  when 
they  do  not  believe  in  Him.  The  Oriental  detests 
these  roundabout  processes.     He  demands  a  de- 


314        THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

cree  on  the  spot,  from  a  ruler  whom  he  is  willing 
to  consider  infallible.  This  is  the  puzzle  to  the 
Western  man  in  all  Eastern  countries.  But  that 
underlying  difference  exists  in  India,  China,  Per- 
sia, Turkey,  Egypt,  even  in  Japan,  despite  their 
flimsy  imitation  of  representative  government, 
today,  as  it  has  always  existed. 

One  of  the  difficulties  of  governing  in  India  to- 
day is  this  unending  circle  of  responsibility.  An 
unending  correspondence,  academic  discussions 
with  annotations,  beginning  in  the  village  of  fifty 
huts  and  ending  in  Parliament;  with  the  result 
that  officials  who  ought  to  be  spending  most  of 
their  time  travelling  through  the  country,  as  we 
are  doing,  are  bending  over  desks  loaded  with 
files  of  documents  and  letters. 

Be  it  said  that  all  officials  from  the  Viceroy 
down,  do  make  these  pilgrimages  through  the 
country  from  time  to  time,  but  there  would  be 
much  less  trouble  if  they  did  so  far  more  fre- 
quently. Be  it  said  too  that  I  am  not  advocating 
any  "  off-with-his-head "  form  of  government 
here  or  anywhere  else;  but  this  Durbar  system, 
modified  and  controlled  has  its  merits;  and  to  one 
who  has  seen  it  in  actual  operation,  it  is  evident 
how  suitable  it  is  to  the  situation  and  how  wel- 
come it  is  to  the  people.  In  several  of  the  native 
regiments    the    English   officers    hold    Durbars. 


BUNIA  — PANI  315 

The  accused  is  heard  in  public,  judged  in  public, 
and  sentenced  there  and  then  in  the  presence  of 
his  fellows.  There  is  no  secrecy,  no  incompre- 
hensible rules  of  procedure ;  and  I  was  told  over 
and  over  again,  by  their  officers,  that  the  men 
seldom  objected  when  punishment  was  meted 
out  to  them  thus  in  the  open. 

This  camping  through  the  country  is  a  sort  of 
peripatetic  Durbar,  a  carrying  on  of  the  oldest 
traditions  of  the  East,  and  that  it  is  well  liked  and 
looked  upon  as  a  boon,  as  an  institution  under- 
stood by  the  humblest  of  the  people,  is  evident  by 
the  welcome  accorded  the  official  everywhere. 
These  are  the  men ;  these  men  and  the  army  offi- 
cers, brought  into  daily  contact  with  the  native 
troops,  so  it  seems  to  me,  who  are  solving  the 
problems  and  lightening  the  burdens  of  this  huge 
mass  of  people  in  India.  It  is  easy  to  become 
viewy  when  one  gets  away  from  daily  contact 
with  the  problems  of  government.  Not  only  in 
the  East,  but  in  the  West  as  well,  one  wonders 
sometimes  whether  we  are  not  devoting  so  much 
time  to  the  teaching  and  discussion  of  how  to  gov- 
ern that  we  forget  to  govern;  and  after  all  the 
only  way  to  govern,  is  to  govern.  In  the  West, 
representative  government  has  resulted  in  such  a 
chaos  of  law-making  that  whole  communities, 
and  vast  aggregations  of  capital  and  labor,  are 


316       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

now  engaged  in  trying  to  disentangle  themselves, 
so  that  they  may  be  free  to  go  about  their  busi- 
ness. Here  in  India,  where  only  some  500,000 
out  of  the  300,000,000  can  write  and  speak 
English,  it  is  necessary  that  the  governing  power 
should  be  simple,  open  to  all,  and  definite. 

As  I  stand  in  this  field  in  the  Punjab,  and  think 
of  the  seething  mass  of  corruption,  political  and 
moral,  in  France;  of  England,  with  one  in  every 
forty  of  her  population  dependent  upon  the  state; 
of  New  York,  the  greatest  city  in  the  greatest  re- 
public in  the  world,  ruled  and  robbed  by  the  most 
corrupt  society  of  plunderers  ever  kept  together 
for  an  hundred  years,  a  society  which,  if  it  were 
an  individual,  could  only  be  rivalled  by  the  worst 
of  the  popes,  or  the  most  decadent  of  the  Nawabs 
of  Oudh,  I  realize  that  the  problem  of  govern- 
ment is  not  solved  by  any  easy  expansion  of  the 
suffrage. 

According  to  the  new  council  provisions,  by 
which  the  councils  of  the  Viceroy,  and  of  the  gov- 
ernors and  lieutenant-governors,  have  been  en- 
larged by  the  addition  of  more  Indian  members, 
the  financial  statement  is  subject  to  the  moving 
of  a  resolution  by  any  member.  According  to  this 
new  rule,  these  members  will  have  even  greater 
liberty  than  is  accorded  to  a  member  of  the  Brit- 
ish Imperial  Parliament  itself.     A  member  of 


BUNIA  —  PANI  317 

Parliament  may  not  propose  an  increase  of  ex- 
penditure, but  only  the  reduction  of  a  grant.  An 
Indian  member  of  these  new  councils  may  pro- 
pose an  increase  of  expenditure,  provided  the 
source  from  which  it  can  be  met  is  indicated. 

I  was  present  at  the  opening  of  the  first  re- 
formed council  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the 
Punjab  at  Lahore,  as  the  guest  of  His  Honour, 
and  I  saw  the  members  sworn  in.  With  the  taste 
for  oratory,  and  for  metaphysical  discussion,  of 
the  educated  native,  and  there  was  evidence  of 
these  qualities  even  on  this  occasion,  these  English 
officials  will  have  even  less  time  than  now  for 
travelling  through  the  country.  These  officials 
are  overworked  now,  and  from  that  plucky  and 
daring  sportsman,  Lord  Minto,  down,  I  saw  man 
after  man  who  was  overstrained  by  the  responsi- 
bilities put  upon  him.  The  sad  feature  of  it  is 
that  it  is  red  tape  that  does  it.  Problems  that  an 
official  ought  to  solve  on  the  spot,  in  Durbar 
fashion,  go  roaming  their  way  through  reams  of 
correspondence,  checked  by  this  one  and  that 
one,  until  the  simple  problem,  probably  arising 
from  Pani  or  Bunia,  becomes  an  octopus,  with 
a  bewildered  official  at  the  end  of  each  tentacle. 

I  beg  that  my  American  readers  will  notice 
this  contrast  between  the  poor  peasant  of  the 
Punjab  and  the  emphatic  display  made  by  the 


318       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

enlarging  of  the  provincial  councils.  Perhaps 
500,000  Indians  are  affected  by  the  latter,  while 
there  are  299,500,000  of  the  former.  The  299,- 
500,000  are  dumb  and  inaudible;  but  they  are 
the  people  whom  England  has  torn  from  the  grip 
of  tyranny,  and  to  whom  she  owes  the  stern  safe- 
guarding of  their  interests.  She  has  no  right  to 
forget  them,  to  lessen  her  care  of  them,  by  having 
too  few  officials  to  look  after  them,  while  engaged 
in  academic  discussions  of  the  rights  of  a  few  to 
representation. 

We  have  exactly  the  same  problem  confront- 
ing us  in  the  Philippines  and  in  Cuba.  From 
priest  and  tyrant  we  extricated  the  natives,  and 
our  first  duty  is  to  them.  Why  do  these  rheto- 
ricians in  India,  in  the  Philippines,  and  in  Cuba 
demand  the  right  to  govern  now,  when  we  as 
the  responsible  police  must  in  the  end  bear  the 
burden  of  blunders  or  of  dangers  ?  Why  did 
they  not  save  their  country  when  she  was  in 
chains  ?  What  proofs  have  we  that  they  are 
capable  now  ?    None ! 

Indeed  we  are  finding,  even  amongst  the  en- 
lightened citizens  of  America,  that  representa- 
tive government  is  not  the  solution  of  all  prob- 
lems, not  the  remedy  for  all  diseases.  In  many 
of  our  communities  they  have  discovered  the 
viciousness  of  this  circle  of  responsibility,  with  its 


BUNIA  — PANI  319 

tail  in  its  mouth.  There  are  nearly  an  hundred 
towns  and  small  cities  in  America  governed  by 
Commissions,  at  the  time  of  this  writing.  The 
citizens  have  chosen  from  three  to  half  a  dozen 
experts  to  manage  their  municipal  affairs.  They 
have  transferred  their  authority  as  representatives 
to  them,  and  they  hold  them  responsible.  This 
method  has  proved  so  economical,  so  efficient,  and 
gives  the  private  citizen  so  much  more  time  for 
his  own  affairs,  that  the  number  of  communities 
wishing  to  be  so  governed  is  rapidly  on  the  in- 
crease. Government  by  reverberation  touched 
up  with  stealing,  has  proved  so  costly,  and  so 
insolently  negligent,  that  even  the  easy-going 
and  optimistic  American  is  turning  from  it  to 
government  by  experts.  As  we  have  shown  in 
another  chapter  (From  Mughal  to  Briton)  the 
roads  of  life  are  becoming  overcrowded,  and 
men  have  all  they  can  do  to  carry  their  burdens 
and  to  keep  on  the  road,  without  the  delay  and 
amateur  fumbling  of  keeping  the  road  guarded 
and  in  repair.  That  should  be  left  to  trained 
road-builders. 

If  the  British  in  India,  and  we  in  the  Philip- 
pines and  in  the  West  Indies,  permit  ourselves  to 
be  led  astray  in  our  colonies,  either  by  ignorant 
politicians  at  home  or  by  self-seeking  politicians 
in  our  colonies,  we  shall  prove  ourselves  unfaith- 


320       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

ful  to  over  300,000,000  of  ignorant  and  helpless 
wards,  representing  one-fifth  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  globe. 

The  cleanest,  the  healthiest,  and  the  most  eco- 
nomically governed  towns  and  cities  in  the  world 
are  in  Germany,  and  the  viewy  reverberator  and 
the  politician  by  trade  receive  small  shrift  there; 
for  their  passing  has  enabled  Germany  to  support 
the  most  formidable  army,  one  of  the  most 
powerful  navies,  the  second  largest  merchant 
marine,  and  the  second  largest  export  and  import 
trade  in  the  world,  with  a  population  of  65,000,- 
000,  living  in  an  area  of  slightly  more  than 
200,000  square  miles. 

The  conflict  in  India  should  not  be  narrowed 
to  an  academical  discussion  between  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  babus,  and  Bengali  babus.  Xo 
buncombe  plea  at  home,  no  cunning  arguments 
by  educated  natives  abroad,  should  tempt  us  to 
hand  over  our  wards  to  the  mercv  of  amateur 
politicians. 


VIII 

A  VISITOR'S   DIARY 

FROM  the  south  to  the  north  of  India  is  a 
long  way;  but  the  difference  in  the  alert- 
ness, the  physique,  and  the  faces  of  the 
inhabitants  makes  it  seem  as  though  you  had 
gone  clean  out  of  one  country  into  another.  It 
is  almost  like  going  from  the  streets  of  a  factory 
town  in  New  England,  or  old  England,  to  our 
Western  plains,  or  to  the  Highlands  of  Scotland, 
to  go  from  the  bazaars  of  southern  or  central 
India  to  the  northern  frontier.  They  are  a 
bold,  fine-looking  lot,  these  Pathans  and  Afridis. 
The  Pathans  are  allied  to  the  Afghans;  and  the 
Afridis  are  one  of  the  large  clans,  or  tribes,  of 
the  hills  between  India  and  Afghanistan. 

Never  have  I  seen,  in  one  hour's  walk,  so  many 
lean,  upstanding,  fearless-looking,  fine-featured, 
eagle-eyed  men,  as  in  Peshawar  and  the  Khaibar 
Pass.  Their  faces  remind  one  of  the  faces  of  our 
own  Indians  of  the  North-west  of  twenty-five 
years  ago,  chiefs  like  Red-Cloud   and   Hollow- 

321 


322       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

Horn-Bear,  whose  faces  were  like  reddish-brown 
masks  of  Dante  or  Savonarola. 

Peshawar  is  the  head-quarters  of  the  first  army 
division,  and  is  in  the  extreme  northern  corner  of 
India.  It  is  the  residence  of  the  Chief  Commis- 
sioner of  the  North- West  Provinces.  It  is  at  the 
southern  entrance  to  the  Khaibar  Pass,  which 
is  the  narrow  road  through  the  mountains  to 
Afghanistan.  Twice  a  week,  on  Tuesdays  and 
Fridays,  the  caravans  go  and  come.  Hundreds 
of  camels,  donkeys,  and  oxen,  loaded  with  mer- 
chandise from  Central  Asia,  from  Afghanistan, 
from  Merve  and  Bokhara  and  even  beyond,  choke 
the  road.  The  British  distribute  a  subsidy  of 
about  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year  among  the 
headmen  of  these  fighting  tribes,  in  lieu  of  the 
loot  that  they  took  from  the  caravans  in  the  old 
days;  and  for  these  two  days  in  each  week  cara- 
vans are  permitted  to  go  and  come  in  safety.  The 
British  have  organized  a  force  of  some  fifteen 
hundred  men  from  these  Afridis,  nine  hundred 
infantry,  and  six  hundred  cavalry,  in  charge  of  a 
dozen  European  officers,  and  they  are  the  guar- 
dians of  the  Pass.  It  is  a  lonely  business  for 
the  British  officers  who  command  these  wild  fel- 
lows at  these  outposts.  They  are  not  only  the 
British  pickets  on  the  outermost  frontier,  they 
are  the  pickets  for  the  whole  white  race,  between 


A   VISITOR'S   DIARY  323 

them  and  the  Tartar  and  the  Mongol;  between 
Asia  and  Europe  in  short.  Through  this  Khai- 
bar  Pass  they  have  rushed  the  defences,  these 
Persians,  Tartars,  Turks,  Afghans,  and  Mughals, 
time  and  time  again,  and  in  every  century  down 
to  this  present  century,  and  they  are  untamed 
still.  The  officers  in  these  mountainous  wilds 
may  not  even  go  out  for  a  day's  shooting  without 
an  armed  escort. 

When  we  left  Peshawar  to  drive  through  the 
Pass,  the  officer  with  us  carried  his  holsters  with 
him;  not  that  there  is  danger  of  a  rising,  or  an 
outbreak,  but  these  fanatical  Muhammadans 
sometimes  break  out,  one  at  a  time,  into  hys- 
terical religious  rage,  run  amok,  as  it  is  called, 
and  seek  salvation  by  the  murder  of  an  infidel. 
It  is  a  narrow  road,  and  all  along  it  on  the 
hills  above  one  sees  at  intervals  the  Afridi 
Rifles,  stationed  to  guard  the  passing  cara- 
vans. The  camels  shuffle  along,  their  noses  in 
the  air,  loaded  with  women  and  children,  and 
all  sorts  of  goods  of  every  description.  The 
donkeys  too  carry  baskets  filled  with  chickens, 
amongst  other  things;  and  women  and  children 
and  chickens  alike  seem  no  more  concerned  than 
the  people  one  sees  in  a  passing  train  at  home. 

There  are  noise,  and  bustle,  and  dust,  and 
shouting  enough  when  the  caravan  from  the  north 


324       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

meets  and  passes  the  caravan  from  the  south; 
but  camels,  and  donkeys,  and  bullocks,  and 
sheep,  and  men,  pass  one  another  somehow  in 
the  clouds  of  dust,  and  come  out  of  this  moving 
cat's  cradle  each  with  his  own.  Boxes  of  tea, 
furniture,  pans  and  kettles,  and  here  and  there  a 
Jewaly  or  camel  bag,  one  of  the  beautiful  carpets 
made  in  Merve  of  silk  and  Pashmina,  a  kind  of 
sheep;  the  wool  being  taken  for  these  fine  car- 
pets only  from  the  root  part  of  the  wool,  may  be 
seen,  and  perhaps  bought,  or  perhaps  an  old 
Pindi  carpet,  and  than  these  there  is  nothing 
finer  of  the  kind  in  the  world. 

But  it  is  only  on  Tuesdays  and  Fridays  that 
this  road  is  a  safe  and  quiet  place  for  the  traffic 
and  merchandise.  On  other  days  you  go  at 
your  own  risk.  Family  and  tribal  feuds  have 
free  play,  at  other  times,  and  there  is  seldom  a 
day  when  one  or  another  is  not  taking  a  pot  shot 
at  an  enemy ;  there  the  dogs  of  war,  small  though 
they  be,  are  snarling,  snapping,  and  biting  all  the 
time.  The  recruits  for  this  corps  of  Afridi  Ri- 
fles are  drawn  from  men  of  different  tribes,  who 
forget  their  feuds  for  the  time,  but  renew  them 
diligently  when  they  have  a  few  weeks'  leave. 

An  officer  of  high  rank  was  leading  some  troops 
through  the  Pass  on  one  occasion,  when  he  was 
annoyed  by  a  tribesman  above  the  road  who  kept 


A  VISITOR'S   DIARY  325 

abreast  of  them,  and  every  now  and  then  took  a 
shot  at  them.  One  of  the  Afridi  escort  volun- 
teered to  hunt  this  man  down,  but  the  officer  said 
no,  it  did  not  matter.  At  last  a  bullet  struck  so 
close  that  the  officer's  horse  stumbled  and  nearly 
fell.  Then  the  soldier  was  told  he  might  go  and 
try  to  track  down  the  persistent  marksman.  In 
an  hour  or  two,  the  escort  saw  a  puff  of  smoke, 
and  the  man  was  seen  to  fall  and  roll  down  the 
cliff.  The  Afridi  returned  and  reported.  The 
officer  complimented  and  thanked  him.  "Oh, 
that's  nothing,"  replied  the  soldier,  "I  should  not 
be  worthy  to  serve  the  white  king  if  I  could  not  do 
that."  Why  was  it  so  easy?  he  was  asked.  "Be- 
cause that  man  up  there  himself  taught  me  to 
track,"  he  replied.  "You  knew  him, then  ? "  said 
the  officer.  "Oh,  yes,  I  knew  him.  That  was 
my  father!" 

They  are  indeed  a  wild  community.  Their 
women  are  slaves  who  are  trafficked  in  like  cat- 
tle. A  man's  father  dies,  for  example,  and  the  son 
puts  up  his  mother  and  sisters  at  auction,  as  part 
of  the  estate.  You  see  men  working  in  the  fields, 
or  on  the  road,  a  gun  slung  over  their  shoulders, 
carried  there  as  the  safest  place  for  it.  Here  and 
there  are  small  fortresses  of  mud,  where  this  fam- 
ily or  that  protects  itself  from  attack,  or  sits  watch- 
ing an  opportunity  to  bring  down  a  passing  ene- 


326       THE   WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

my.  I  saw  a  long  ditch  leading  from  the  road, 
and  looking  like  the  dry  bed  of  a  canal,  and  I 
was  told  that  this  was  the  ingenious  path  made 
by  a  certain  householder  to  get  to  the  road  out 
of  reach  of  his  enemy's  rifle,  whose  house  was 
near  by.  It  is  veritably  the  last  remaining  cock- 
pit  of  the  world,  these  hills  and  mountain  paths 
between  northern  India,  and  central  Asia  and 
Afghanistan. 

The  Amir  of  Afghanistan  winks  at  the  lawless- 
ness, not  altogether  displeased  to  have  these  wild 
tribesmen  between  his  dominions  and  the  Brit- 
ish. The  Amir  is  an  independent  ruler,  except 
that  he  may  not  make  treaties  or  give  franchises 
without  the  consent  of  the  British  Government. 

It  was  from  these  wild  fellows  that  the  truly 
wonderful  corps  of  "The  Queen's  Own  Corps 
of  Guides"  was  recruited.  There  are  some  four- 
teen hundred  of  them,  infantry  and  cavalry,  com- 
manded by  British  officers  and  picked  from  the 
dare-devils  of  this  devil's  own  country.  There 
are  Afridis.  Pathans,  Khuttucks,  Sikhs,  Punjabi 
Muhammadans,  Punjabi  Hindus,  Gurkhas,  Tur- 
comans, Persian  Farsiwans,  Kabulis,  and  Dogras 
among  them.  Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  of  Lucknow 
fame,  started  the  organization  and  gave  it  its  name, 
and  Harry  Lumsden  was  their  first  commander. 
For  sixty  years  they  have  deserved  the  confidence 


A  VISITOR'S   DIARY  327 

and  the  hopes  of  their  founder,  by  their  loyalty, 
their  daring,  their  trustworthiness;  and  as  their 
founder  was  a  Lawrence,  one  can  hardly  say 
more.  When  the  Mutiny  broke  out  they  marched 
five  hundred  and  eighty  miles  to  Delhi,  marching 
on  an  average  twenty-seven  miles  a  day,  at  the 
hottest  time  of  year,  through  the  hottest  re- 
gion on  earth.  As  they  neared  the  Ridge  at 
Delhi  after  this  almost  unprecedented  feat  of  en- 
durance, a  staff  officer  rode  up  and  said:  "How 
soon  will  you  be  ready  to  go  into  action  ?"  "In 
half  an  hour,"  was  the  cheery  answer  of  their 
commander,  Daly ;  and  in  the  fight  that  followed 
every  British  officer,  including  Daly,  was  killed 
or  wounded. 

"And  men  in  desert  places,  men 

Abandoned,  broken,  sick  with  fears 
Rose  singing,  swung  their  swords  agen, 
And  laughed  and  died  among  the  spears." 

Readers  weary  of  the  self-advertising  crew  of 
explorers,  amateur  soldiers,  sportsmen,  and  poli- 
ticians ;  weary  too  of  even  the  gallant  Sir  Galahads 
of  fiction ;  may  turn  to  "The  Story  of  the  Guides," 
by  one  of  their  commanders,  Younghusband, 
with  promise  of  refreshment  and  encouragement. 
There  are  real  men  among  us  still,  both  brown 
and  white,  who  not  only  do  their  duty  without 


328       THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

making  a  fuss  about  it,  but  who  die  doing  it;  and 
their  only  reward  is,  that  there  is  a  gulp  in  the 
throat  and  a  wetness  about  the  eyelids  as  we 
read;  and  a  tightening  of  the  lips,  and  a  prayer 
that  we  may  do  half  as  well,  but,  well  or  ill,  that 
we  may  not  be  tempted  into  the  maudlin  modern 
malady  of  self-advertisement.  It  makes  the 
chorus-girl  posturings  of  many  of  our  candidates 
for  popular  applause  look  shamefully  ridiculous. 

That  Khaibar  Pass  is  indeed  "the  way  of  sin- 
ners" ;  but  the  "Story  of  the  Guides"  shows  how 
these  very  sinners  may  be  made  weapons,  and 
ideally-tempered  weapons,  for  the  defence  of  the 
right,  when  they  are  disciplined  and  led  by  the 
right  men. 

Very  different  is  this  Muhammadan  city  of 
Peshawar  from  those  villages  in  the  Punjab. 
The  streets  are  crowded  with  fierce-looking  men, 
Kashmiris,  Nepalese,  Beluchis,  Tibetans,  Yar- 
kandis,  Bokhariots,  and  Turcomans,  armed  most 
of  them,  and  in  every  kind  of  costume.  They 
pour  in  here  twice  a  week  from  Afghanistan,  from 
the  surrounding  districts,  and  from  central  Asia ; 
and  you  have  seen  something  new  indeed  in  the 
way  of  wild  life  from  the  top  of  the  world,  after  a 
few  hours  among  them.  They  have  the  look  of 
men  who  depend  upon  their  own  prowess,  and 
not  upon  the  law,  for  their  safety. 


A  VISITOR'S  DIARY  329 

I  stationed  myself  upon  the  top  of  the  high  city 
gate  one  morning,  and  watched  the  housekeeping 
in  the  town.  Each  house  has  a  roofless  room, 
with  walls  some  ten  feet  high,  and  as  you  look 
down,  you  may  see  the  women  and  children,  the 
cats  and  pigeons,  the  sewing  and  washing,  the 
combing  of  hair,  and  the  home  life  of  the  whole 
population.  The  women  and  children,  the  cats 
and  pigeons  are  there,  but  the  men  are  in  the 
streets;  and  to  see  the  barber  stropping  his  razor 
on  his  shin,  and  shaving  a  customer  in  the  road, 
full  of  camels,  goats,  bullocks,  carts,  and  pedes- 
trians, is  to  see  two  men  whose  nerves  must  have 
been  disciplined  by  much  familiarity  with  cold 
steel. 

The  military  is  much  in  evidence  here,  and  at  a 
dinner  at  the  house  of  the  general  commanding, 
one  sees  uniforms  from  every  branch  of  the  ser- 
vice, and  medals  won  all  over  the  world ;  and  hears 
talk,  and  stories  of  the  adventurous  life  of  these 
frontiersmen  of  the  Empire.  I  dance  in  the  state 
quadrille  with  my  host,  the  Chief  Commissioner's 
wife,  as  my  partner,  and  a  crow  one  must  look,  in- 
deed, in  this  crowd  of  brilliant  uniforms.  During 
these  holiday  weeks  at  Christmas-time,  Peshawar, 
and  Lahore,  and  Lucknow,  where  I  happened  to 
be,  were  gay  indeed  with  dinners  and  dances,  and 
polo  and  horse-shows,  and  one  catches  glimpses 


330       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

now  and  then  of  some  of  the  hangers-on  of  the 
official  life  here,  who,  having  no  duties  and  no 
responsibilities,  furnish  the  gossip,  scandal,  and 
heart-burnings  of  the  social  life  of  India.  "'Do 
you  see  that  woman  r"  said  a  bluff  colonel  to  me 
at  a  certain  dance.  "Well,  she  ought  to  be  de- 
ported." It  was  easy  to  see  what  he  meant, 
particularly  if  you  had  met  the  lady  at  dinner. 
They  drift  out  from  England,  through  some  at- 
tenuated connection  with  the  civil  or  military 
life  here,  and  some  of  them  are  odd  specimens 
enough.  Weather-beaten  female  warriors  they 
look.  One  I  can  see  now,  in  the  twilight  of  her 
youth,  a  widow,  grass  or  genuine  I  know  not 
which,  lean  and  tough  of  physique;  no  matter 
how  long  she  stewed  she  would  not  make  broth 
for  a  meal;  with  a  prehensile  smirk,  as  though 
she  would  fasten  on  to  anybody.  Indeed,  watch- 
ing her  methods,  I  should  not  have  been  sur- 
prised, at  any  time,  to  see  her  take  flight  with  a 
juicy  subaltern  dripping  in  her  talons. 

Harvard  men  may  be  surprised,  as  they  will  be 
proud  to  learn,  that  a  Doctor  of  Philosophy  of 
their  making,  an  archaeologist  now  in  the  employ 
of  the  British  Government,  has  turned  up  here  as 
the  discoverer  of  the  casket  said  to  contain  the 
bones  of  Buddha.  It  is  a  recent  discovery,  and 
one  of  the  most  important,  and  he  brought  it  him- 


A   VISITOR'S   DIARY  331 

self,  and  showed  us  the  Greek  designs,  and  the 
name  of  the  Scythian  King  Kanishka  upon  it; 
Kanishka  who  ruled  in  north-east  India  about 
40  A.  D.,  and  who  was  an  enthusiastic  disciple  of 
Buddha,  and  who  had  the  sacred  books  codified, 
after  a  great  council  of  Buddhist  priests  and 
scholars,  which  he  convened  to  discuss  the  mat- 
ter. This  learned  enthusiast  from  Harvard  rep- 
resents the  West  in  the  East  indeed,  and  with 
dignity. 

During  the  greater  part  of  one's  wanderings  in 
India,  one  sees  little,  and  how  wise  it  is  that  this 
is  so,  of  the  armed  men  who  are  the  real  grip  on 
India ;  but  as  you  travel  north  you  see  the  bow- 
string drawn  tauter  and  tauter,  until  here  at 
Peshawar  it  is  ready  to  let  fly  the  arrow  at  any 
moment  of  the  day  or  night;  and  from  these  fron- 
tier tribesmen  themselves,  is  welded  the  arrow- 
head. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  the  British  respect, 
and  even  reverence,  for  health  and  character  and 
courage.  They  are  the  foundations  of  his  su- 
premacy as  a  ruler  at  home,  but  particularly 
abroad.  It  is  evident  at  once,  out  here,  how 
useless  is  a  weak  man  either  physically  or  mor- 
ally. No  amount  of  mental  brilliancy  would 
compensate  for  the  lack  of  physical  staying 
power.     The  Indians  understand  these  qualities 


332        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

and  trust  them.  The  educated  Indians  have 
carried  off  many  prizes  in  the  way  of  intellectual 
feats  of  prowess,  even  at  the  English  universities, 
and  against  the  stoutest  rivals,  but  they  them- 
selves recognize  that  the  world  rests  upon  the 
bulk  and  steadiness  of  the  elephant,  rather  than 
upon  the  cunning  of  the  fox;  or  as  the  Chinese 
would  say,  upon  the  tortoise,  which  they  claim 
is  one  of  the  nine  offspring  of  the  dragon,  and 
the  emblem  of  strength. 

Some  of  these  dark  people  have  the  faces,  and 
the  port  and  carriage,  of  power;  but  it  is  hollow, 
the  shadow  of  an  inheritance  not  the  real  sub- 
stance. It  is  as  though  the  masks  of  warriors 
and  sages  were  walking  about  untenanted.  The 
character  and  power  have  become  exhausted, 
leaving  the  husk  of  a  great  civilization  gone  to 
seed. 

The  hospitality  of  these  Englishmen  knows  no 
bounds.  Despite  his  crowd  of  guests  at  this  holiday 
season,  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  Punjab 
takes  us  in  at  Lahore;  and  the  famous  camel  car- 
riage, drawn  by  six  trotting  camels  harnessed  in 
pairs,  each  pair  with  a  postilion,  swings  us  away, 
soon  after  our  arrival,  at  a  good  pace,  to  the  polo 
ground.  I  have  seen  no  polo  anywhere,  prob- 
ably no  one  else  has,  comparable  to  the  polo 
played  by  our  American  team  when  they  won  the 


A  VISITOR'S  DIARY  333 

championship  in  London;  but  on  these  hard  In- 
dian grounds,  mounted  on  thorough-bred  ponies, 
the  polo,  played  with  sticks  with  whippier  han- 
dles than  ours,  is  an  astonishing  exhibition  of 
speed.  The  Indian  players,  light  and  supple, 
seem  to  depend  upon  their  wrists,  and  upon  the 
resiliency  of  the  shafts  of  their  mallets,  to  send 
the  ball  along  over  the  hard  ground.  The  white 
and  the  brown  play  together.  Here,  as  at  home, 
the  Englishman  knows  no  class  on  the  play- 
ground ;  the  only  distinction  made  is  between  the 
straight  and  the  crooked,  the  skilful  and  the 
awkward. 

It  was  here  in  Lahore  that  the  British  Em- 
pire's patriot  poet,  Kipling,  began  his  work  in  the 
local  newspaper  office;  and  what  I  am  now  see- 
ing all  over  India,  of  the  cheery,  stout-hearted 
civil  and  military  officers,  bred  in  him  that  flavor 
of  virility  which  he  has  distributed  for  the  white 
man's  encouragement  around  the  world. 

The  city  was  here  before  even  Alexander  the 
Great  came ;  was  in  its  glory  when  the  lieutenants 
of  the  Great  Mughals  were  its  governors;  was 
later  the  capital  of  the  Sikh  warriors,  who  gave 
the  British  the  toughest  resistance  of  all  their 
fighting  experiences  in  India,  under  their  great 
commander  Maharaja  Ranjit  Singh;  and  is  now 
a  city  of  two  hundred  thousand  souls,  living  in 


334       THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

a  space  of  some  five  hundred  acres,  surrounded 
by  the  remains  of  the  old  city  wall. 

The  Lieutenant-Governor  mounts  me  upon  his 
elephant,  for  the  narrow  streets  are  too  crowded 
for  a  carriage,  and  a  foot-passenger  would  make 
his  way  but  slowly;  but  "My  Lord  the  Ele- 
phant," with  his  bell  hanging  from  his  neck,  his 
trunk  swinging  from  side  to  side,  his  great  bulk 
shuffled  along  on  his  cushioned  feet,  needs  no 
police  nor  outriders  to  make  way  for  him.  He 
is  himself  bigger  than  many  of  the  shops  and 
houses,  and  from  his  howdah  you  may  see  all 
the  layers  of  domestic  life  on  both  sides  of  the 
streets,  from  the  squatting  merchant  on  the  level 
of  the  door-sill,  to  the  women  and  children 
above,  and  the  son  training  his  carrier-pigeons 
on  the  roof.  Akbar,  Jahangir,  Shah  Jahan,  and 
Aurangzeb,  all  left  monuments  of  their  rule  here; 
and  when  Shah  Jahan  was  ruler  in  Delhi,  and 
his  Vizier,  ^Yazir  Khan,  ruled  in  Lahore,  were 
days  of  wealth  and  splendor;  but  the  Sikh  con- 
queror had  no  taste  for  these;  he  was,  and  is  for 
that  matter,  a  warrior,  and  most  of  the  splendid 
monuments  have  crumbled  and  gone;  and  in 
their  place  are  the  broad  avenues  of  the  British 
residential  quarters,  with  Government  House, 
the  English  and  Catholic  cathedrals,  and  the 
fine  buildings  of  the  Aitcliison  College. 


A  VISITOR'S   DIARY  335 

How  the  Mughal  rulers,  or  Alexander  the 
Great,  would  have  stared  in  bewilderment  had 
they  seen  what  I  saw  in  Lahore!  First,  early 
one  morning  I  accompanied  the  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor to  the  grounds  of  Aitchison  College,  and 
saw  the  ceremony  of  the  laying  of  two  corner- 
stones, one  for  a  Hindu  temple,  the  other  for  a 
Sikh  Dharmsala.  The  Aitchison  College  is  a 
sort  of  public  school  for  the  education  of  the 
sons  of  chiefs,  and  as  Hindu  and  Sikh  are  both 
represented,  both  are  encouraged  to  have  tem- 
ples of  their  faith  there.  Later  on  that  same 
morning,  I  was  present  at  the  opening  of  the  first 
reform  council,  and  heard  the  members  sworn 
in  and  take  the  oath,  some  in  the  native  language, 
but  the  majority  in  English.  The  reformed  coun- 
cil here,  as  in  other  provinces  of  India,  is  a  recent 
and  far-reaching  change,  which  permits  a  certain 
number  of  elected  members,  and  also  widens  the 
scope  of  discussion  to  such  an  extent,  that  gov- 
ernors and  lieutenant-governors  will  need  the 
delicate  diplomacy  of  skilful  presiding  officers,  to 
expedite  the  business  of  their  provinces.  It  is 
another  burden,  another  demand  for  uncommon 
ability,  and  one  wonders  whether  the  breed  of 
laborious  archangels  in  Great  Britain,  is  keep- 
ing up  with  the  ever-increasing  demands  made 
upon  it. 


336       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

These  things  would  have  astonished  Jahangir, 
but  had  he  accompanied  me  to  the  prison,  he 
would  have  been  bewildered  indeed.  In  La- 
hore is  the  central  prison  of  the  Punjab  for  long- 
sentence  prisoners.  It  is  situated  in  an  airy, 
healthy  spot,  and  its  cleanliness  and  orderliness 
and  air  of  comfort  must  make  it  a  tempting  place 
of  residence,  to  natives  accustomed  to  the  village 
hut  or  the  crowded  bazaar.  What  a  change 
from  the  dungeon,  or  a  sack  and  the  river;  from 
the  gibbet,  or  the  crushing  knees  of  an  elephant, 
which  were  the  swifter  and  surer  methods  of 
India's  former  rulers. 

The  Aitchison  Chiefs'  College  takes  its  name 
from  a  former  lieutenant-governor,  and  is  in- 
tended for  the  training  of  the  sons  of  the  princes 
and  chiefs  of  the  Punjab.  The  buildings  are  in  a 
fine  park,  and  there  are  playing  fields,  stables,  and 
gymnasium,  and  dining-rooms  and  dormitories. 
There  are  some  eighty  boys  there  now,  ranging  in 
age  from  eight  to  seventeen.  They  get,  with 
modifications,  the  training  of  an  English  public- 
school  boy.  Some  of  them  were  strikingly  hand- 
some, with  a  look  of  breeding  about  them.  They 
take  to  hockey,  but  not  so  well  to  the  hurly-burly 
of  foot-ball,  the  masters  told  me;  and  as  in  sim- 
ilar institutions  in  the  West,  the  results  are  good 
in  some  cases,  indifferent  in  others.     The  corner- 


A  VISITOR'S   DIARY  337 

stone  was  only  laid  as  lately  as  1888,  so  that  it  is 
not  fair,  perhaps,  to  ask  proof  of  the  value  of  the 
college.  India  needs  administrators,  men  who 
will  devote  themselves  to  the  care  and  develop- 
ment of  their  own  property,  whether  it  be  small 
or  great;  but  the  Indian  Raja  inclines  to  the 
military  profession,  and  there  he  is  shut  off  by 
the  disinclination  to  let  him  rise  to  a  grade  where 
he  would  be  given  the  task  of  commanding 
Europeans.  This  is  one  of  the  problems  of  ad- 
ministration in  India:  to  know  what  to  do  with 
these  young  men,  many  of  them  wealthy  and  am- 
bitious, but  who  are  barred  from  holding  the 
higher  offices  to  which  their  rank  and  their  pref- 
erences lead  them. 

The  college;  the  swearing  in  of  the  reformed 
council;  the  prison;  and  the  two  temples  side  by 
side  but  of  different  faiths,  are  the  monuments  the 
British  are  setting  up  here,  in  the  room  of  the 
mosques,  and  tombs,  and  palaces  of  dalliance, 
now  in  ruins,  of  their  predecessors. 

I  visited  the  Rajput  College  founded  by  the 
Maharaja  of  Jaipur;  the  college  at  Amritsar, 
where  stands  also  the  Golden  Temple,  the  centre 
of  Sikh  worship;  the  Daly  College  at  Indore; 
and  the  Anglo-Muhammadan  College  at  Aligarh, 
founded  by  Sir  Syed  Ahmad  Khan,  who  seems  to 
have  been  a  broad-church  Muhammadan ;  and  the 


338        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

college  I  have  just  mentioned.  The  reason  under- 
lying these  foundations  is  broadly  that  the  Indian 
youth,  whether  Rajput,  Sikh,  Muhammadan,  or 
Hindu,  may  be  trained  as  well  as  taught.  In 
India,  whatever  the  sect  or  caste,  morality  is  based 
wholly  upon  religion;  and  bad  as  the  results  of 
education  without  religious  teaching  are  proving 
themselves  to  be  in  the  ^Yest,  they  are  even  worse 
in  India.  English  rule  to-day  in  India  is  suffer- 
ing  as  much  from  that  one  fatal  error  as  from  all 
other  causes  put  together.  India  is  offered  a 
strange  and  unsettling  education,  without  any 
safeguards  of  moral  discipline;  and  the  Universi- 
ties of  Bombay,  Calcutta,  Madras,  Lahore,  and 
Allahabad,  which  are  mere  examining  bodies, 
with  no  provisions  for  moral  or  religious  super- 
vision, have  spawned  the  scurrilous  garrulity  of 
the  native  press,  and  the  spurious  patriotism  of 
the  political  murderer.  This  secular  education 
of  a  race  physically  and  morally  feeble  is  only 
producing  talkers  and  plotters,  not  doers.  Eng- 
land is  compromising  in  this  matter,  and  letting 
her  conscience  play  the  fool.  She  is  thrusting  a 
thin  secular  education  upon  the  unprepared  and 
unstable,  and  turning  out  by  the  score  weak 
fanatics  and  silly,  would-be  tyrants.  Even  those 
picked  bands,  the  Pilgrims  and  the  Puritans, 
misunderstood  freedom  in  the  beo-innino;,  and  set 


A   VISITOR'S   DIARY  339 

up  a  moral,  religious,  and  social  tyranny  in  New 
England  almost  unequalled  in  its  severity.  What 
is  to  be  expected  from  the  dregs  of  this  washed- 
out  Indian  civilization,  if  such  was  the  result 
among  the  very  flower  of  the  moral  heroism  of  the 
seventeenth  century!  The  Prince  Agha  Khan, 
who  has  succeeded  Sir  Syed  Ahmad  Khan  as 
patron  of  the  Muhammadan  College  at  Aligarh, 
writes:  "We  want  Aligarh  to  be  such  a  home  of 
learning  as  to  command  the  same  respect  of 
scholars  as  Berlin  or  Oxford,  Leipsic  or  Paris. 
Above  all,  we  want  to  create  for  our  people  an 
intellectual  and  moral  capital."  This  is  ambi- 
tious, but  it  puts  the  emphasis  where  it  belongs. 
We  live  together  in  our  closely  packed  modern 
society,  first  by  virtue  of  our  similarity  of  actions, 
next  by  our  similarity  of  moral  ideals,  and  only 
last  by  our  similarity  of  intellectual  development 
and  tastes.  This  means  that  self-control  and 
moral  discipline  are  to  be  taught  first,  and  book- 
learning  last.  The  ability  to  read  and  to  write 
is  such  a  modern  accomplishment  among  the 
masses,  that  we  point  to  it  as  the  cross  of  salva- 
tion in  the  sky:  by  this  shall  you  conquer!  But 
it  is  only  because  it  is  an  untried  remedy.  It  is 
working  untold  evil  among  the  superficially  ed- 
ucated ;  and  even  the  man  of  letters  is  but  a  girlish 
personage,  unless  he  escapes  from  the  tyranny  of 


340       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

books,  and  beats  his  learning  into  sword  or 
ploughshare  upon  the  rough  anvil  of  the  world  of 
men.  The  freedom  of  libraries  to  the  mentally 
unstable  is  as  dangerous  as  the  freedom  of  the 
city  to  the  morally  unsound;  and  this  littering  of 
the  land  with  libraries  will  one  day  be  looked 
upon  not  as  a  charity,  but  as  a  folly;  and  the 
liberty  to  do  so  will  be  as  carefully  restricted  as 
the  starting  of  national  banks. 

But  if  we  are  to  see  anything  of  this  many- 
shaded  rainbow  life  of  India,  we  may  not  halt  too 
long  over  the  discussion  of  these  matters.  We 
must  be  off  now  to  pay  visits  to  His  Highness 
the  Maharaja  of  Kapurthala,  and  His  Highness 
the  Maharaja  of  Patiala.  We  are  whisked  away 
from  the  station  at  Katarpur  in  motor-cars  seven 
miles  to  Kapurthala,  the  State  of  some  six  hun- 
dred and  fifty  square  miles,  and  three  hundred 
thousand  people,  of  a  native  prince,  who  has 
turned  to  France  rather  than  to  England,  for  his 
training  and  amusements.  The  guest-house  is 
well  furnished,  lighted  by  electricity,  supplied 
with  open  fires,  and  stands  in  a  park  of  its  own, 
not  far  from  the  palace.  The  palace  where  we 
dine  in  the  evening  is  only  just  finished,  built  on 
a  French  model  and  furnished  in  the  most  luxu- 
rious and  finished  taste.  It  is  much  the  finest 
modern  building  of  its  kind  in  India,  and  one  of 


A  VISITOR'S   DIARY  341 

the  finest  in  the  world,  and  France  may  well  be 
proud  of  this,  her  most  imposing  modern  monu- 
ment in  India.  I  took  in  to  dinner  the  famous 
Spanish  beauty,  who  is  the  Prince's  lately  mar- 
ried wife.  The  dinner  was  served  in  European 
fashion,  with  one  dish,  a  Kapurthala  curry,  that 
would  have  won  praise  from  Brillat-Savarin  him- 
self. If  I  were  an  Indian  rival  to  the  throne,  des- 
tined to  die,  I  should  ask  to  have  the  diamond- 
dust  given  me  in  that  curry. 

The  next  day,  after  a  ride  before  breakfast,  the 
stables,  the  law-courts,  the  treasury  are  visited, 
winding  up  with  a  presentation  to,  and  a  chat 
with,  the  Maharaja's  council.  In  the  afternoon 
we  go  to  the  palace  for  tea  and  tennis,  and  the 
Maharaja  proves  himself  no  mean  opponent 
with  the  racquet. 

My  host  furnishes  a  regiment  of  infantry  to  the 
Imperial  Service  troops,  and  Colonel  Asgar  Ali, 
his  commander-in-chief,  gives  me  a  rare  treat  the 
next  day.  We  have  a  sham-fight.  A  distant 
village  is  to  be  taken,  and  next  to  fighting  your- 
self, being  umpire  is  the  choice  post.  We  gal- 
loped about  for  hours  watching  the  men  work, 
my  companion  suggesting  and  advising,  the  rifles 
popping  away  with  blank  cartridges,  and  finally 
a  wild  charge  against  the  village  defences,  the 
call:  "Cease  firing";  and  barring  a  few  bruises, 


342       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

we  start  back,  to  the  music  of  a  first-rate  drum 
and  fife  corps,  none  of  us  the  worse,  all  of  us  the 
better,  indeed,  for  the  vigorous  exercise. 

I  suppose  one  could  interest  oneself  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  a  small  far-away  State  like  this  of 
Kapurthala,  and  keep  oneself  busy;  but  it  is  not 
a  job  the  average  Oriental  cares  for.  All  these 
States  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  insured  by 
the  British,  which  makes  for  irresponsibility  in 
the  rulers.  Many  of  them  lapse  into  dissipation, 
and  long  for  the  change  travel  in  Europe  affords. 
Few  of  them  realize  that  luxury  is  the  most  un- 
comfortable thing  in  the  world;  indeed  it  is  only 
a  few  intelligent  men  in  the  West,  who  have  dis- 
covered it,  and  who  strive  to  keep  themselves 
hard,  as  a  mere  matter  of  daily  comfort. 

Our  own  millionaires  drape  themselves  in  the 
costly  artistic  spoils  of  Europe,  and  cushion  their 
women  and  themselves  in  over-ornamented  pal- 
aces, breed  a  few  forlorn  spenders;  and  one  finds 
the  frayed  fringes  of  the  third  and  fourth  gene- 
rations strewn  about  the  capitals  of  Europe,  or 
comfortably  potted  in  club  windows  at  home. 
One  should  not  be  too  hard  upon  the  Oriental 
princes  therefore.  The  inequalities  of  wealth  are 
the  more  exasperating  when  they  are  new.  Pos- 
sessors of  wealth  without  traditions,  and  without 
responsibilities,  and  without  distinguished  mental 


A  VISITOR'S   DIARY  343 

or  moral  attributes,  lend  themselves  easily  to  the 
onslaughts  of  the  discontented,  and  of  the  social 
and  economic  fanatics.  We  must  agree  that 
mere  spending  power,  unrelieved  by  grace  or 
graciousness,  is  a  vulgar  thing,  and  not  easy  to 
defend;  but  one  should  not  lose  one's  temper 
over  it.  The  most  salient  feature  of  our  Ameri- 
can life,  to  many  on-lookers,  seems  to  be  our  mil- 
lionaires. But  look  at  their  descendants !  Could 
there  be  a  more  ludicrous  outcome  of  great  en- 
deavor!    The  mountain  and  the  mouse  indeed! 

One  is  dismayed  at  the  lack  of  healthy  humor  in 
Americans,  that  they  do  not  see  that  the  million- 
aire as  an  individual  is  almost  more  heavily  han- 
dicapped than  anybody  else,  so  far  as  the  perpet- 
uation of  his  power  is  concerned.  The  shirt- 
sleeves are  hardly  covered  by  a  coat,  the  table- 
knife  introduced  to  a  fork,  the  illiteracy  concealed 
by  a  layer  of  polite  usages,  before  the  descendants, 
fatuous,  foul,  or  foolish,  are  on  their  way  back  to 
the  shirt-sleeves,  the  unaccompanied  knife,  and 
the  unformed  manners, speech, and  vvriting.  This 
phase  of  our  civilization  calls  not  for  spiteful  envy, 
not  even  for  laughter,  though  it  is  hard  to  re- 
press it,  but  for  pity.  At  any  rate  it  gives  us  no 
vantage-ground  for  criticism  of  the  East. 

His  Highness  the  Maharaja  of  Patiala,  who 
governs  a  state  of  five  thousand  square  miles  in 


344        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

area,  and  a  population  of  a  million  and  a  half,  is 
one  of  the  younger  princes  and  only  lately  come 
to  the  throne.  He  had  one  wife  before  he  came 
into  power  in  October,  1909;  since  then  he  has 
exercised  the  privilege  of  his  faith,  and  married 
two  more.  I  arrived  as  his  guest,  in  time  to  be 
present  at  a  banquet  given  in  the  great  Durbar 
Hall  of  his  capital,  in  honor  of  the  birthday  of 
the  Maharani.  The  hall  was  entirely  lighted  by 
more  than  two  thousand  candles,  in  huge  glass 
candelabra  twenty-five  feet  high.  The  meal  was 
served  in  courses,  by  a  small  army  of  servants, 
and  the  very  good  native  band  played  familiar 
European  airs,  and  even  one  or  two  of  our  darky 
Southern  songs,  and  played  them  well.  Seated 
beside  the  Diwan,  or  minister  of  finance  of  His 
Highness,  I  asked  whose  birthday  was  being  cel- 
ebrated and  toasted,  but  even  he  did  not  know 
which  one!  There  were  of  course  no  native 
women  present.  Here  as  elsewhere  in  India  no 
woman  of  rank  is  supposed  to  show  herself  in 
public.  Indeed  it  is  the  common  custom  among 
Hindus  as  well  as  among  Muhammadans,  as  soon 
as  a  man  has  sufficient  means  to  enable  him  to 
support  the  women  of  his  family  in  idleness,  to 
permit  them,  and  the  women  themselves  are 
more  eager  for  it  than  the  men,  to  adopt  the  Mu- 
hammadan  custom  of  Purdah,  to  retire  to  the 


A   VISITOR'S   DIARY  345 

Zenana,  or  women's  quarters,  and  only  appear 
in  public  with  the  face  covered.  We  have  a  sim- 
ilar custom  in  the  West  of  keeping  our  women  in 
idleness;  but  we  exploit  a  startling  amount  of 
their  persons,  at  public  and  private  entertain- 
ments, as  an  ornamental  compensation,  I  sup- 
pose, for  their  isolation  from  many  forms  of  use- 
ful activity.  That  universal  prayer-book  of  the 
West,  the  only  prayer-book  indeed  loved  and 
pondered  over  by  both  the  pious  and  the  proud, 
"The  Imitation,"  says:  "Be  not  familiar  with 
any  woman;  but  commend  all  good  women  in 
general  to  God." 

An  officer  of  the  household  drove  me  about 
the  capital  the  next  day,  and  showed  me  the  Ma- 
haraja's jewels  and  treasury,  and  the  great  dia- 
mond valued  at  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  dollars. 
Though  the  Prince  himself  is  a  Sikh,  this  officer 
was  a  Mussulman,  and  claimed  that  the  cleavage 
among  the  people  of  India,  and  the  consequent 
racial  jealousies,  have  increased  since  the  Brit- 
ish domination.  They  have  fostered  these  jeal- 
ousies, he  said,  that  the  resultant  antagonisms 
may  protect  them.  He  agreed,  as  did  every  in- 
telligent man  I  met  in  India,  for  that  matter,  that 
India  needs  British  rule,  and  respects  British 
rule,  but  dislikes  the  arrogance,  selfishness,  and 
coldness  of  the  Englishman. 


346       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

The  State  of  Patiala  supplies  a  force  of  nearly 
two  thousand  men  to  the  Imperial  Service  troops, 
and  one  day  they  were  marched  out  and  put 
through  their  paces,  and  finally  marched  past 
for  me  to  review.  Young  Prince  Hitendra  of 
Kooch  Behar,  who  was  also  a  guest  at  this  time, 
and  who  had  his  string  of  polo  ponies  with  him, 
mounted  me  on  Straight  Shot — one  remembers 
the  name  even,  of  so  good  a  mount  as  that — and 
we  had  a  fine  day  with  the  troops.  One  may  go 
far  to  find  smarter  light  cavalry  than  these  Sikh 
lancers  of  Patiala.  A  long  row  of  lancers  gal- 
loped up,  dismounted,  pulled  their  horses  to  the 
ground  where  they  lay  stock  still.  Another  and 
then  another  galloped  up  behind  and  performed 
the  same  manoeuvre;  as  each  man  dismounted 
he  lifted  his  horse's  near  fore-leg,  then  tightened 
the  right  rein,  and  down  he  went,  and  there  he 
stayed  without  a  motion;  looking  carefully  I  saw 
not  a  single  horse  rebel.  At  the  sound  of  a  whis- 
tle they  rose  together,  and  were  off  like  a  flight 
of  birds. 

The  next  day  I  had  another  of  the  days  in  In- 
dia to  be  marked  with  a  white  stone.  We  were 
driven  in  motor-cars  out  to  a  wide  plain,  with 
clumps  of  trees  dotted  about,  but  the  whole  sur- 
rounded by  dense  woods.  On  our  arrival  we 
were  greeted  by  what  T  took  to  be  a  whole  vil- 


A   VISITOR'S   DIARY  347 

lage.  There  were  elephants,  camels,  bullock- 
carts,  five  hundred  mounted  troops,  and  an  army 
of  beaters  on  foot.  Their  task  was  to  form  a  ring 
around  the  wide  open  space,  and  to  drive  the 
wTild  boars  out  into  the  open.  We  mounted,  I 
was  given  a  long  spear,  and  told  briefly  how  to 
use  it,  and  what  dangers  to  avoid,  and  off  we 
trotted:  His  Highness,  one  or  two  native  officers, 
the  Resident,  Major  Molyneux  of  the  Imperial 
Service  troops,  Prince  Hitendra,  and  I. 

I  remember  when  I  first  saw  fat  pheasants, 
walking  about  in  their  preserve  on  a  large  estate 
in  England,  that  I  thought  pheasant-shooting 
must  be  an  easy  game  enough.  I  also  remember 
that  when  I  began  shooting,  as  they  came  like 
bullets  over  the  tree-tops,  high  in  the  air,  that  I 
revised  completely  my  estimate  of  the  skill  re- 
quired in  that  sport. 

When  you  are  mounted  on  a  fast  thorough-bred 
pony,  with  six  feet  of  steel-pointed  spear  in  your 
hand,  and  set  out  for  the  first  time  to  go  pig- 
sticking, you  feel  rather  sorry  for  the  pig.  But 
when  two  or  three  hundred  pounds  of  wild  boar, 
with  a  hide  like  a  rhinoceros,  curling  tusks,  and 
muscles  of  wire  and  rawhide,  shoots  by  in  front 
of  your  galloping  pony,  turning,  twisting,  charg- 
ing across  you,  and  even  at  you,  here  again  the 
game  in  reality  is  far  different  from  what  your 
ignorance  had  pictured. 


348       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

It  was  not  long  before,  blown,  hot,  and  tired, 
I  felt  no  compunction  about  sticking  a  pig,  if  I 
could  get  near  one,  and  all  sympathy  was  for  my- 
self. To  part  company  with  your  saddle,  and  to 
fall  near  these  erinaceous  brigands,  is  to  be  ripped 
from  thigh  to  chin  by  their  sharp  tusks  before 
there  is  time  for  rescue.  This  happens  now  and 
again,  and  probably  if  it  did  not  happen  no  one 
would  go  pig-sticking.  You  think  of  that  when 
you  are  still  cold  in  the  saddle;  just  as  the  stone 
walls,  and  mud  fences,  and  ditches  of  Tipperary 
County,  Ireland,  seem  formidable  before  you 
get  warmed  up,  and  then  you  either  take  them 
with  your  horse,  or  in  a  "voluntary"  without  him, 
but  never  with  much  thought  of  their  size.  So 
too  you  forget  their  tusks,  and  thick  hides,  and 
their  unparalleled  ability  to  "buck  the  line,"  and 
their  awe-inspiring  dentition,  when  you  have 
speared  over,  and  under,  one  or  two  of  these  wild 
boars;  and  you  shut  your  teeth,  and  take  another 
grip  of  your  spear,  and  settle  yourself  more  firmly 
in  your  saddle,  and  swoop  down  upon  another 
boar  scuttling  away,  as  though  his  death  were  a 
patriotic  demand,  or  the  ideal  of  some  high 
though  ferocious  standard  of  duty. 

I  took  things  quietly  at  first,  watching  the  old 
hands  at  the  game,  and  then  I  tried  my  hand, 
once,  twice,  three  times,  and  failed.  It  was  no 
fault  of  the  pony  who  followed  these  bristling. 


A   VISITOR'S   DIARY  349 

dodging,  and  ferocious  polo  balls  as  though  they 
were  only  wooden;  he  knew  the  game  well 
enough,  and  perhaps  deserves  more  credit  than  I 
for  the  pig  I  finally  brought  down. 

As  I  am  telling  the  story,  I  might  properly 
enough  enlarge  upon  this  pig,  as  he  was  the  first 
and  last,  and  probably  the  only  one,  I  shall  ever 
spear.  He  was  not  one  of  the  largest  killed  that  day, 
but  he  was  the  only  one  that  went  down  from  one 
spear  thrust,  not  to  rise  again.  He  ought  to  have 
had  the  spear  behind  the  shoulder,  but  he  got  it 
behind  the  left  ear ;  like  so  many  neophytes  I  ap- 
peared more  skilful  than  I  was.  At  this  game  the 
man  who  gets  his  spear  into  the  pig  first  is  by 
courtesy  his  slayer,  but  it  is  rare  that  one,  or  even 
half  a  dozen  spear  thrusts,  are  enough.  They 
keep  going  until  the  steel  reaches  a  vital  part,  and 
they  give  and  take  no  quarter.  His  Highness 
presented  me  with  my  spear  at  the  close  of  the 
day's  sport,  and  both  spear  and  boar's  head  are 
here  to  look  up  at  on  the  wall  as  years  go  by ;  and 
by  the  time  the  grandchildren  are  old  enough 
to  ask  what  it  is,  that  boar  will  have  grown  to  be 
a  very  large,  and  a  very  fierce  boar  indeed !  When 
we  returned  to  the  motor-cars  we  found  a  large 
square  tent  carpeted  with  rugs,  furnished  with 
chairs  and  tables,  and  a  hot  luncheon  ready  for 
us.     Tents  go  up  and   come  down  in  India  as 


350        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

easily  apparently  as  we  open  and  shut  an  um- 
brella. 

But  that  is  but  a  Tent  wherein  may  rest 
A  Sultan  to  the  realm  of  Death  addrest; 

The  Sultan  rises,  and  the  dark  Ferrash 
Strikes  and  prepares  it  for  another  guest. 

The  Imperial  Service  troops  date  from  1888, 
when  the  native  chiefs  offered  to  share  in  the  de- 
fence of  the  Empire.  The  irregular  and  undis- 
ciplined forces  of  the  native  states  were  organ- 
ized into  smaller  bodies,  to  be  trained  under  the 
supervision  of  British  officers,  who  now  number 
twenty-one.  The  strength  of  these  bodies  of 
troops  amounts  to  twenty  thousand  men  of  whom 
two  thousand  eight  hundred  belong  to  the  trans- 
port trains.  The  polo-playing  and  horse-loving 
Maharaja  of  Jodhpur  furnishes  a  regiment  of 
lancers;  the  desert  state  of  Bikaner,  a  camel- 
corps  which  has  seen  service  in  Africa  and  China ; 
I  spent  a  morning  looking  over  the  train  of  trans- 
port carts  of  the  Jaipur  state;  Kapurthala  fur- 
nishes infantry,  and  Patiala  light  cavalry;  and  all 
of  these  corps  are  officered  and  commanded  by 
men  of  their  own  neighborhood,  with  the  Maha- 
raja  in  each  case  as  commander-in-chief. 

Once  a  year  the  athletic  contingents  from  these 
corps  come  together  for  the  annual  athletic  meet- 


A  VISITOR'S   DIARY  351 

ing.  The  meeting  of  1910  was  held  in  the  native 
state  of  Her  Highness  Sultan  Begum,  the  present 
Nawab  of  Bhopal,  who  rules  over  an  area  of 
seven  thousand  square  miles  and  a  population 
of  six  hundred  and  seventy  thousand.  It  was 
through  the  good  offices  of  Major- General  F. 
II.  R.  Drummond,  the  hard-working  Inspector- 
General  of  these  Imperial  Service  troops,  that  I 
was  invited  by  Her  Highness  to  be  her  guest 
during  the  week.  Her  Highness,  and  Queen 
Wilhelmina  of  the  Netherlands,  are  the  only 
women  ruling  States  in  the  world  to-day.  Far 
apart  as  are  the  Muhammadan  Begum  and  the 
Protestant  Queen,  they  are  equally  respected 
and  beloved.  My  crust  of  provincial  ignorance 
was  badly  cracked,  when  at  my  first  interview 
with  the  Begum,  covered  from  head  to  foot,  and 
with  only  the  shine  of  her  eyes  visible  through 
the  two  slits  in  her  head-covering,  she  discussed 
with  me  the  comparative  value  of  tutors,  schools, 
or  kindergarten  methods  for  her  grandchildren; 
and  on  the  other  hand  averred  solemnly  that 
the  illness  of  one  of  her  sons  was  undoubtedly 
due  to  the  comet,  of  which  there  was  much  talk 
at  the  time.  She  had  made  the  pilgrimage  to 
Mecca  and  when  her  party  was  attacked  in  the 
desert,  by  a  roving  band  of  Arabs,  she  took  com- 
mand of  her  own  forces  and  drove  off  the  attack- 


352       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

ing  party  with  loss  to  them.  I  was  presented 
with  several  volumes  written  by  her,  with  her 
autograph  on  the  title-pages;  and  the  census, 
and  the  vital  and  other  statistics  of  her  State  are 
admirably  compiled,  as  the  volume  before  me  as 
I  write  confirms. 

To  arrive  at  your  host's  railway  station  after 
midnight  is  awkward  for  both  host  and  guest  as 
a  rule ;  but  not  so  here.  Hundreds  of  troops,  and 
their  officers,  and  forty  to  fifty  European  guests 
were  received  and  taken  care  of  for  this  week; 
and  when  I  appeared  upon  the  platform  at  Bho- 
pal,  I  was  at  once  taken  in  charge  by  an  officer, 
who  handed  me  an  addressed  envelope,  telling 
me  where  my  quarters  were,  the  hours  for  meals, 
the  times  of  the  arrival  and  departure  of  mails 
and  trains,  and  a  programme  of  the  week's  do- 
ings and  entertainments.  The  Germans  could 
not  have  done  it  better.  I  was  undeservedly 
honored  by  having  luxurious  quarters  in  the 
bungalow  of  the  Inspector-General. 

It  was  a  jolly  crowd  of  officers  and  their  wives 
when  we  met  at  luncheon  and  dinner;  but  it  was 
a  hard-worked  lot  of  men  who  supervised,  um- 
pired, and  directed  the  sports,  which  went  on 
hour  after  hour  from  daylight  till  dark.  Polo, 
hockey,  running-races,  broad  and  high  jumping, 
obstacle  races,  and  exercises  on  the  horizontal 


A  VISITOR'S   DIARY  353 

and  parallel  bars,  and  other  games  and  sports 
were  included  in  the  programme.  When  it  is 
considered  that  the  track  was  by  no  means  as  per- 
fect as  ours,  these  records  are  not  bad :  Hundred 
yards,  lOf  seconds;  mile,  4:50f  minutes;  three 
miles,  1.5:45f  minutes;  high  jump,  5  ft.  4  in. 
As  for  the  obstacle  race,  it  was  the  severest  test 
of  the  kind  I  have  ever  seen  or  heard  of.  It  in- 
cluded among  other  things  rope-climbing,  in  and 
out  of  the  windows  of  a  house,  a  terrible  bit  of  arti- 
ficial jungle,  a  tent  to  go  through,  a  wooden  wall 
fifteen  feethigh,  a  broad  and  deep  water-jump,  and 
a  long  run  home.  I  doubt  if  our  best  men  at  this 
game  would  have  a  chance  against  these  Indians. 

There  are  men  from  as  far  north  as  Kashmir, 
and  men  from  the  south,  east,  and  west,  and  you 
realize  the  vastness,  and  the  differences  of  races 
of  India,  when  you  see  them  here  together.  Ev- 
erything goes  smoothly,  not  a  hitch  that  I  saw; 
but  it  must  entail  a  tremendous  amount  of  work 
for  the  British  officers,  who  train  the  men,  super- 
intend the  meeting,  teach  fair-play,  and  whose 
cheery  authority  keeps  the  peace,  without  which 
there  would  surely  be  a  dozen  riots  a  day  between 
these  rival  bands  of  different  races. 

On  the  last  afternoon  of  the  games  Her  High- 
ness presented  the  prizes,  and  great  was  the  ap- 
plause as  the  various  winners  appeared.     When 


354        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

the  winning  polo  team  was  called,  there  was  some 
delay  and  running  about,  and  at  last  only  two  of 
the  four  presented  themselves.  I  learned  after- 
wards that  the  other  two  were  at  their  prayers 
when  they  were  called,  and  refused  to  be  dis- 
turbed even  by  this  great  honor  of  receiving  prizes 
from  a  Muhammadan  ruler.  Some  of  us  perhaps 
take  our  devotions  thus  seriously,  but  not  many, 
I  fear! 

On  the  last  day  of  the  meeting  we  were  in- 
vited to  the  palace  for  a  garden-party,  and  enter- 
tained with  music,  shooting  at  clay  pigeons,  at  a 
target  with  the  rifle,  a  sumptuous  tea,  and  pre- 
sented when  we  left  with  gold  and  silver  tissue 
garlands  hung  round  our  necks  by  the  hostess. 
and  atta  and  pan,  the  mark  of  Oriental  courtesy, 
consisting  of  sweetmeats  and  the  sprinkling  of 
our  handkerchiefs  with  perfume.  After  our  final 
dinner  the  Begum  drove  over  with  an  escort  of 
lancers,  and  read  us  a  graceful  little  speech  of 
congratulation  and  farewell. 

The  next  visit  to  Colonel  Daly,  the  Resident  in 
charge  of  the  native  chiefs  of  central  India,  [it 
Indore,  brought  the  unique  pleasure  of  finding 
that  my  hostess  was  an  American.  This  proved 
a  busy  centre  of  activity,  and  I  had  the  good  fort- 
une to  arrive  in  time  for  a  meeting  of  the  native 
chiefs,  interested  in  the  building  and  management 


A  VISITOR'S  DIARY  355 

of  the  Daly  Chiefs'  College,  named  after  the 
present  Resident's  father.  The  masters  are  care- 
fully chosen  from  the  English  public  schools  and 
universities;  and  here  too  they  are  bulwarking 
education,  with  training  by  example,  in  character 
and  self-discipline. 

The  energetic  physician  of  this  district,  with  his 
hospitals,  dispensaries,  training-school  for  nurses, 
bacteriological  laboratory,  and  his  students,  made 
the  remark,  which  I  quote  as  conveying  by  an  apt 
illustration  my  own  general  impression  of  Indian 
intellectual  ability.  "The  Indian  students  are 
quick  and  clever,"  he  said;  "they  have  memory. 
If  told  a  man  has  pneumonia,  they  can  rattle 
off  the  symptoms,  but  if  told  certain  symptoms, 
they  cannot  as  readily  name  the  disease.  They 
are  poor  diagnosticians."  They  lack  the  cour- 
age which  welcomes  responsibility,  and  the  con- 
fidence which  names  because  it  knows,  here  as 
in  other  departments  in  which  they  serve.  The 
Englishmen  are  the  real  vertebrae  of  India,  and 
you  see  it  well  illustrated  here  at  Indore,  at  Bho- 
pal,  and  elsewhere. 

The  Maharaja  Tukoji  Rao  Holkar  Bahadur  of 
Indore,  a  neighbor  of  Colonel  Daly,  gave  me  a 
day's  shooting  for  black  buck;  and  I  have  a 
twenty-one  inch  head  as  a  companion  for  the 
wild  boar  from  Patiala.     But  it  is  terribly  hot  on 


356       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

the  plains  around  Indore  where  the  black  buck 
roam.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  a  rifle  went  wrong, 
and  kept  missing  fire,  I  was  delayed  and  did  the 
bulk  of  my  hunting  between  the  hours  of  eleven 
and  two.  First  a  motor-car  took  me  out  to  the 
plains,  there  the  Maharaja's  shikari  met  me  with 
ponies,  and  after  a  few  miles  on  the  ponies  we 
mounted  a  bullock-cart,  which  is  less  likely  to 
frighten  the  game.  First  the  rifle  missed,  and 
then  I  missed.  Finally  a  servant  went  off  and 
returned  with  a  rifle  of  the  Maharaja,  and  a  per- 
fect little  weapon  it  was.  I  had  tired  myself,  and 
probably  the  shikari,  when  a  buck  leaped  in  the 
air,  and  with  a  second  shot  dropped.  The  first 
shot  had  merely  taken  a  bit  of  hide  off  the  top  of 
his  shoulders,  and  as  he  sprang  into  the  air  the 
second  went  through  his  heart.  As  in  the  case  of 
the  boar,  I  had  better  luck  than  my  skill  deserved, 
for  the  buck  had  practically  jumped  into  that 
second  bullet.  They  are  quick,  and  shy,  and 
small,  these  animals,  and  like  so  many  other 
games  it  looks  a  lot  easier  than  it  is. 

At  a  garden-party  given  for  the  chiefs  the  next 
afternoon  I  saw  a  variety  of  costumes,  a  wealth 
of  color,  and  a  procession  of  old-fashioned  man- 
ners and  customs  in  the  persons  of  the  chiefs. 
One  fine-looking  old  fellow  I  can  see  now.  His 
whiskers  were  curled  around  his  ears,  a    jade- 


A  VISITOR'S   DIARY  35? 

handled  knife  was  in  his  belt,  and  he  was  followed 
wherever  he  went  by  three  servitors,  one  carrying 
his  hookah,  another  his  sword,  and  the  third  his 
gun.  He  maintained  the  state  of  a  time  when 
every  man  went  armed;  just  as  we  still  have  two 
buttons  on  our  coats,  at  the  small  of  the  back, 
which  are  merely  the  relics  of  the  time  when  our 
fathers  buttoned  back  their  coat-tails  that  they 
might  both  walk  and  draw  their  swords  more 
easily.  Other  chiefs  more  modern  in  costume  and 
manner  played  tennis ;  some  were  poor,  while  one 
of  them,  Colonel  Maharaja  Sir  Madho  Rao  Sind- 
hia,  governs  the  state  of  Gwalior,  twenty-nine 
thousand  square  miles  in  area,  with  a  popula- 
tion of  three  million  five  hundred  thousand,  and 
with  revenues  of  four  or  five  millions  of  dollars. 
He  is  one  of  the  richest,  as  he  is  one  of  the 
most  conscientious  and  hard-working  princes  in 
India.  My  next  visit,  of  only  two  days,  was  to 
him. 

Neither  space  nor  the  interest  of  my  readers  per- 
mit detailed  descriptions  of  this  and  other  visits. 
I  shall  never  forget,  however,  the  magnificent 
creature  who  was  detailed  to  meet  me  at  the  sta- 
tion at  Gwalior.  He  was  a  good-looking  man  to 
begin  with,  of  slender  build  and  medium  height. 
His  coat  was  a  tight-fitting  affair  of  pale  pink 
silk,  shot  with  blue,  his  trousers  were  skin-tight 


358       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

and  of  white  linen.  A  gold-embroidered  waist- 
coat showed  at  his  throat,  and  around  his  neck  was 
a  string  of  uncut  emeralds,  all  of  a  size,  and  each 
as  big  as  a  pigeon's  egg.  Around  his  wrists  were 
strings  of  large  diamonds,  and  hanging  from  the 
top  of  his  right  ear  were  three  pear-shaped  pearls. 
He  wore  the  turban  peculiar  to  Gwalior,  of  scar- 
let with  a  peak  in  the  centre  of  gold-threaded  em- 
broidery, and  sewn  with  jewels.  What  a  sight  a 
great  Durbar  in  India  must  be  when  these  hun- 
dreds of  princes  and  their  escorts,  all  in  their 
bravest  costumes,  march  past  on  elephants  and 
horses!  Millions  of  value  in  embroideries,  in 
jewels,  in  horse  and  elephant  harness,  some  of 
the  elephants  even,  with  bangles  of  precious 
stones,  silver  horn  cases  for  the  bullocks,  and 
gold-embroidered  cloths;  howdahs  of  gold  and 
silver,  and  gold  and  silver  cannons  even;  what 
barbaric  splendor  it  must  be!  It  was  dazzling 
enough  to  have  here  and  there  such  glimpses  of 
it  as  I  had. 

They  were  very  differently  clothed,  were  the 
next  gentlemen  who  entertained  me.  Colonel 
Deare,  and  the  officers  of  the  Eighth  Hussars,  out 
for  a  week  of  exercise  at  manoeuvres,  with  other 
troops  in  their  dusty  khaki  uniforms,  living  in 
tents,  and  in  the  saddle  from  dawn  till  dark, 
were  smart  enough  in  their  mess  dress  at  dinner; 


A   VISITOR'S   DIARY  359 

but  they  were  more  useful-looking  than  orna- 
mental when  at  work.  Those  were  glorious  days 
to  me,  galloping  about,  and  watching  the  various 
arms  of  the  service,  artillery,  cavalry,  and  in- 
fantry, native  and  European,  at  work  together. 
Who  would  not  be  a  cavalryman,  when  two 
hundred  of  them  dash  from  an  ambush  across 
the  plains,  and  swoop  down  upon  the  guns;  or  a 
gunner,  when  they  gallop  up,  swing  around,  un- 
limber  the  guns,  and  begin  pounding  away;  or  an 
infantryman  prone  on  the  ground  ready  to  blaze 
into  a  line  of  fire  when  the  enemy  is  near  enough, 
or  on  his  feet,  bayonet  fixed,  waiting  for  the  wTord 
to  charge!  It  is  these  few  moments  in  the  life  of 
the  fighting  man  which  make  him  forget  the  drab 
dreariness  of  hunger,  and  thirst,  and  exposure, 
and  wounds,  and  heat,  and  cold,  and  prison, 
and  death,  which,  after  all,  make  up  the  warp 
and  woof  of  war;  those  shining  minutes  of  ex- 
citement are  only  the  scant  embroidery  of  the 
cloth. 

They  are  a  sensible  race,  these  Britons!  It 
was  hard  work,  and  dusty,  thirsty  work  they  were 
doing,  and  there  was  no  saving  of  themselves 
while  doing  it ;  but  every  comfort  that  health  re- 
quires they  had  in  their  camp;  and  though  my 
taste  in  such  matters  may  be  at  fault,  I  was  never 
happier  during  all  my  stay  in  India  than  when 


360       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

I  was  living  under  canvas,  with  civil  or  military 
officials;  roasting  if  you  please  at  mid-day,  and 
freezing  at  midnight;  but  with  just  that  combina- 
tion of  hardship  and  comfort  which  keeps  a  man, 
a  man;  and  neither  a  boor  on  the  one  hand,  nor 
a  mollycoddle  on  the  other. 

I  trotted  back  into  Lucknow,  through  the 
crowded  streets  of  the  bazaars,  to  be  greeted  by 
some  days  of  excitement  very  different  from  the 
sober  discipline  of  the  military  camp.  An  un- 
usual number  of  police  were  about,  drawn  from 
th°  country  districts,  and  I  soon  saw  that  they 
were  not  there  without  reason.  It  was  the  sea- 
son of  the  Mussulman  festival  of  Muharram. 

There  are  two  principal  sects  of  Islam,  the 
Sunis  and  the  Shiahs.  The  Shiahs  are  the  less 
numerous,  and  the  head-quarters  of  the  sect  are 
in  Persia.  Lucknow,  once  the  capital  of  the 
Nawabs  of  Oudh,  still  celebrates  the  festival  as 
an  occasion  for  marking  the  distinction,  because 
these  Nawabs  were  of  the  Shiah  sect,  and  the 
Shiahs  are  still  more  numerous  and  powerful 
here  than  in  any  other  part  of  India. 

The  first  three  successors  of  Muhammad  were 
selected  by  the  faithful  without  regard  to  the 
claims  of  Ali,  his  son-in-law;  and  Ali  only  suc- 
ceeded to  the  fourth  vacancy.  The  two  sons  of 
Ali,  Hassan  and  Hussain,  were  killed  bv  a  rival, 


A  VISITOR'S  DIARY  361 

fighting  bravely  at  the  battle  of  Kerbela.  The 
sect  of  the  Sunis  accept  the  first  three;  but  the 
sect  of  the  Shiahs  reject  them,  and  look  upon  the 
two  sons  of  Ali  as  the  great  martyrs  of  their  faith. 
They  were  preparing  to  commemorate  this  mar- 
tyrdom when  I  returned  to  Lucknow.  When 
the  day  came  the  whole  city,  as  it  seemed  to  me, 
turned  itself  into  a  procession.  Shrines  made  of 
paper,  bamboo  and  tinsel,  some  small,  carried  by 
a  single  person ;  others  huge  affairs,  carried  by  a 
dozen  men,  were  borne  along,  the  crowd  march- 
ing far  out  into  the  country,  where  these  shrines 
were  solemnly  interred.  Various  features  of  the 
tragic  history  of  the  death  of  Hassan  and  Hussain 
are  represented  during  the  procession  and  at  the 
interment;  and  every  now  and  again  the  proces- 
sion halted,  while  an  excited  orator  rehearsed 
some  portion  of  the  story.  They  marched,  shout- 
ing the  names  of  the  martyrs,  beating  their 
breasts,  throwing  dust  on  their  heads,  they  are 
all  bareheaded  on  this  occasion,  weeping  and 
wailing.  One  group  carried  what  looked  like 
short  flails,  and  to  the  ends  of  the  cords  were  tied 
knife-blades;  these  they  whirled  around  their 
heads,  bringing  them  down  on  their  shoulders 
and  backs,  which  were  streaming  with  blood. 

This  was  not  a  procession  of  boys,  or  of  hyster- 
ical youths  and  women,  but  of  grown  men,  many 


362       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

of  whom  were  pointed  out  to  me  as  men  of  stand- 
ing in  the  community.  To  see  a  group  of  these 
men  stop,  and  burst  into  groans,  tears,  and  wild 
cries  of  grief;  to  see  their  breasts  bruised,  and  in 
some  cases  the  skin  broken,  by  the  beating  from 
their  fists;  to  see  them  covered  with  blood,  dust, 
and  sweat,  their  faces  haggard,  their  eyes  blazing 
with  excitement ;  to  hear  one  of  them  recite  part  of 
the  tale  of  woe,  his  eyes  streaming  with  tears  and 
his  voice  choked  with  emotion ;  and  the  tale  punc- 
tuated with  wild  cries  and  shrieks  and  lusty  pum- 
melling of  the  breast  on  the  part  of  his  hearers, 
while  little  children  and  old  women  threw  dust 
on  their  own  and  each  other's  heads,  is  the  most 
amazing  spectacle  of  religious  enthusiasm  that 
one  may  see  anywhere  in  the  world  to-day.  This 
is  the  kind  of  man,  this  is  the  quality  of  human 
stuff,  which  spread  like  lava  over  Arabia,  Egypt, 
Spain,  up  to  the  very  gates  of  France,  and  burst 
through  the  Afghan  passes  and  conquered  India. 
One  readily  understands  why.  Apparently  the 
faith  is  still  alive,  sincere,  and  as  ready  for  the 
torch  to  light  it  against  the  infidel  as  ever.  Thev 
abhor  pig,  insist  upon  the  rite  of  circumcision, 
ignore  the  bondage  of  caste,  and  with  sword  and 
crescent  crumpled  up  almost  the  whole  of  the 
fighting  world  at  one  time,  declaring:  there  is  one 
God,  Muhammad  is  his  prophet,  and  we  are  the 


A   VISITOR'S   DIARY  363 

chosen  people,  with  a  paradise  of  delights  await- 
ing- us  as  a  recompense  for  our  slaughter  of  the 
infidel  and  the  idolater. 

One  in  every  five  of  the  population  of  India  is 
a  Mussulman,  and  the  British  King-Emperor 
rules  over  more  Mussulmans  than  even  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey.  This  frenzied  crowd  is  tuned  up  to  a 
delicate  pitch  of  excited  sectarianism;  and  their 
rivals  the  Sunis,  and  the  Hindus,  generally  offer 
cause  for  fighting  before  the  day  is  over;  and 
sometimes,  as  lately  in  Bombay,  actual  riots, 
which  call  for  the  intervention  of  the  police  and 
the  shooting  of  the  rioters.  It  is  hard  to  believe 
that  these  men,  cutting  their  backs  with  knives, 
and  beating  their  breasts  to  a  pulp  with  their  fists, 
over  a  question  of  Caliphic  succession  a  thousand 
years  old,  are  the  fathers  and  brothers  and  cous- 
ins of  the  cricket-playing  students  at  Aligarh. 
It  is  hard  to  believe  that  those  worshippers  in  the 
gloomy  temple  at  Benares  are  in  any  way  related 
to  the  distinguished  and  learned  judge  in  the 
court  at  Bombay.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  those 
catechists  crowding  into  the  Golden  Temple  at 
Amritsar  are  cousins  of  the  Sikh  ruler  who  knows 
his  Paris  better  than  most  Parisians ;  harder  still 
to  reconcile  the  facts  that  the  pink  pasteboard 
uniformity  of  Jaipur,  and  the  tawdry  architect- 
ural decadence  of  Lucknow,  are  phases  of  the 


364       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

same  civilization  which  built  the  Pearl  Mosque 
at  Delhi,  the  Taj  at  Agra,  the  great  red  sandstone 
fort  of  Akbar,  and  the  town  of  Fatehpur-Sikri. 
Only  India  has  the  right  to  be  called  the  land  of 
contrasts. 


IX 

JOHN   CHINAMAN  AND   OTHERS 

IF  the  only  impressions  of  India  one  carried 
away  were  received  on  entering  India  as  the 
guest  of  the  Governor  of  Bombay,  and  on 
leaving  India  as  the  guest  of  the  Viceroy  at  Cal- 
cutta, and  during  the  six  months  between  as  the 
guest  of  English  and  Indian  officials  and  poten- 
tates, the  American  would  have  only  a  tale  to 
tell  of  wonders  and  splendors,  and  of  a  hospitality 
as  kindly  as  it  was  brilliant. 

But  India  is  a  land  of  "braided  light  and 
gloom."  Close  beside  the  beautiful  temple  are 
creatures  fantastically  deformed;  there  are  no 
such  exotically  magnificent  princes,  and  no  such 
millions  living  from  hand  to  mouth;  no  mortal 
succeeds  as  does  the  Indian  Yogi,  who  has  ac- 
quired Yoga  or  union  with  the  Divinity,  in  di- 
vorcing body  and  soul,  and  no  other  land  has 
such  a  swarm,  estimated  at  five  million,  of  beg- 
gars; there  is  no  such  practical  exponent  of 
peace  as  the  orthodox  Jain,  no  such  ruffian  as  the 
untrained  Bhil;  there  is  no  land,  I  believe,  gov- 

365 


366       THE    WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

erned  by  such  self-sacrificing  rulers,  and  ruling 
over  such  ignorant  multitudes;  there  is  no  land 
where  you  may  see  a  picked  man  of  our  race, 
soldier,  sportsman,  administrator,  the  best  we 
have  produced  in  short  in  the  matter  of  man- 
hood, and  beside  him  our  best  expression  of 
dignified  womanhood;  and  not  far  away  an 
Indian  fakir  naked,  painted,  covered  with  dust 
and  vermin,  illustrating  the  disorderliness  of 
fanatical  ignorance. 

I  had  had  some  six  months  of  this  "braided 
light  and  gloom"  when  I  arrived  at  Calcutta  as 
the  guest  of  the  Viceroy  who  had  had  five  years 
of  it.  The  Viceroy  and  the  Governors  of  prov- 
inces are  not  permitted  to  leave  India  during  their 
term  of  office,  and  five  years  of  Indian  climate 
and  Indian  responsibility  is  killing  work.  If 
there  be  faults  and  mistakes  in  the  administra- 
tion of  India,  India  has  taken  toll  in  the  health 
and  lives  of  those  who  have  governed  her.  Lord 
Minto  has  not  taken  his  duties  lightly,  and  I 
can  fancy  that  he  looks  back  upon  his  daring 
feats  as  a  horseman,  as  to  the  risks  of  the  nur- 
sery, compared  to  his  burdens  as  Viceroy  of 
India. 

Fast  mail  steamers  and  the  telegraph,  and  a 
fussy  Secretary  of  State  for  India,  and  back  of 
him  the  ignorant  prying  of  representatives  who 


JOHN    CHINAMAN  367 

wish  his  administration  no  good,  may  make  a 
present-day  governor  the  most  governed  man  in 
the  whole  dependency  he  is  supposed  to  govern. 
England  has  produced  many  men  and  still  pos- 
sesses a  few,  who  decline  to  be  governed  gov- 
ernors. That  type  of  man  founded,  fought  for, 
freed,  and  made  both  England  and  America 
what  they  are.  You  have  only  to  walk  about 
Calcutta  to  see  that  England  has,  however  un- 
willingly, let  it  be  known  that  the  unlearned,  the 
untra veiled,  the  superficial  are  in  control  at 
home.  Though  the  working  man,  why  he  arro- 
gates to  himself  that  title  I  am  always  at  a  loss 
to  understand,  may  be  getting  even  more  than 
his  rights  at  home,  his  short-sighted  shrewdness 
there,  may  be  losing  him  his  markets  abroad. 
Indeed,  that  is  what  is  actually  happening. 
They  are  even  now  grinding  Manchurian  wheat 
with  Chinese  labor  at  Woosung.  A  steamship 
line  carries  pig-iron  from  the  Yellow  River  to 
Seattle;  and  they  are  making  shoes  at  Cawn- 
pore  with  American  machinery.  Both  Peking 
and  Mukden  are  to  have  a  water  supply.  They 
are  getting  on! 

Coming  as  I  did  from  the  north  of  India,  the 
scarcely  veiled  impudence,  the  assertion  of 
equality  and  independence,  the  ugly  temper  of 
the  Bengali  were  not  only  evident,  they  were  ob- 


368        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

trusive  in  Calcutta.  Here  you  see  the  ullage  of 
the  cask  of  India,  and  it  is  gaseous  as  might  be 
expected,  and  ever  ready  to  be  touched  into  ex- 
plosiveness. 

There  can  be  nothing  more  dangerous  in  deal- 
ing with  a  population  such  as  this,  than  to  give 
the  impression  that  the  man  sent  to  rule  has  a 
string  tied  to  him,  which  may  be  jerked  from 
London.  I  have  no  means  of  knowing  whether 
this  supposition  is  true  or  not  true;  but  that  it 
is  firmly  believed  by  the  Indian  politicians  and 
their  followers  there  is  no  doubt;  and  that  it  puts 
the  ruler  in  a  cruelly  embarrassing  position  goes 
without  saying.  Lord  Minto's  administration 
has  nevertheless  persisted  in  reforms,  persisted 
in  the  optimistic  view,  and  resisted  the  tempta- 
tion to  panicky  repression;  but  that  is  because 
Lord  Minto  himself  is  a  brave  man. 

As  I  have  pointed  out  elsewhere,  the  Indian 
only  recognizes  readily  power  that  is  autocratic 
and  personified  in  one  man.  When  that  power 
is  interfered  with  from  unknown  sources  it  con- 
fuses him,  and  his  violence  is  as  often  as  not 
the  result  of  his  confusion.  If  the  British  Gov- 
ernment does  not  trust  the  viceroy  sufficiently 
to  let  him  alone,  the  Indians  will  go  still  further, 
as  they  have  done,  and  throw  stones  at  his  motor- 
car, and  then  bombs  at  himself  and  his  wife,  and 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  369 

the  six  hundred  members  of  Parliament  are 
more  to  blame  than  the  three  hundred  millions 
of  India.  If  one  reads  Morley's  "Life  of  Burke," 
with  its  bitter  attacks  upon  Clive  and  Hastings, 
one  may  find  therein,  though  it  be  far  distant,  not 
a  little  light  thrown  upon  certain  phases  of  recent 
Indian  administration.  I  can  speak  with  au- 
thority only  upon  one  matter.  Of  the  hospital- 
ity dispensed  at  Government  House,  and  at  Bar- 
rackpur,  the  country  residence  of  the  Viceroy,  I 
may  write  with  the  pleasantest  memories;  and 
in  candor  rather  than  in  compliment  one  must 
congratulate  the  English  people  that  they  have  a 
woman  to  send  abroad,  as  the  consort  of  the 
representative  of  their  king,  so  queenly  in  man- 
ner and  appearance,  as  their  representative  who 
was  my  hostess  in  Calcutta. 

Calcutta  with  its  million  inhabitants,  its  large 
seaport  trade,  its  public  buildings,  fine  clubs, 
and  beautiful  race-course,  perhaps  the  best- 
equipped  in  the  world,  even  the  garden-party  I 
attended,  given  by  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  with 
the  variety  of  costumes  and  races  assembled 
there,  proved  to  me  how  soon  the  eye  becomes 
dulled  and  the  interest  languorous.  I  had  seen 
so  much,  that  Calcutta  seemed  commonplace, 
though  I  know  well  that  it  is  not.  What  the 
experienced  Anglo-Indians,  on  the  ship  which 


370       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

carried  us  to  India,  told  me  of  Bombay,  and 
which  my  unaccustomed  eyes  found  to  be  quite 
untrue,  in  Bombay,  I  experienced  in  Calcutta. 
The  strange  features  and  figures,  the  moving 
mass  of  color  were  dulled  by  the  film  of  ex- 
perience which  had  grown  over  my  eyes.  It 
may  be  too  that  months  of  travel,  where  both 
mind  and  body  are  travelling,  and  where  the 
experiences  are  novel  and  the  contrasts  so  strik- 
ing; where  one  shifts  from  a  palace  to  a  tent, 
and  from  philosophy  to  pig-sticking  all  within 
a  few  hours,  teach  the  impression-receiving  parts 
of  mind  and  body  to  defend  themselves  by  be- 
coming more  opaque.  It  was  almost  with  a  sigh 
of  relief  that  I  dropped  into  my  deck-chair  early 
one  morning  on  the  steamer,  on  my  way  to 
Rangoon. 

On  the  road  to  Mandalay, 

Where  the  flyin '-fishes  play, 
An'  the  dawn  conies  up  like  thunder,  outer' 

China  'cros't  the  bay. 

It  is  getting  on  toward  April,  and  the  moist 
heat,  even  lolling  on  the  deck  of  a  moving 
steamer,  makes  pulp  of  a  man ;  only  the  mosqui- 
toes make  him  realize  his  manhood.  Mosquitoes 
have  their  place  in  the  world.  It  is  their  func- 
tion to  prove  to  man  that  no  discomfort  is  com- 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  371 

plete  without  them.  I  was  even  too  lackadaisi- 
cal to  do  more  than  to  smile  weakly,  when  the 
menu  of  the  first  day's  luncheon  informed  me 
that  the  only  hot  dish  was  grilled  pork  chops, 
British  gastronomies  undefiled!  Add  to  this 
kind  of  fare  the  mental  pabulum  of  a  loquacious 
and  facetious  skipper,  and  you  have  a  ship 
which  christens  herself  the  "Emetic,"  whatever 
her  name  registered  at  Lloyd's  may  be. 

Whether  it  was  because  I  had  just  left  the 
sombreness  of  India,  the  contrast  with  Burma 
was  all  in  Burma's  favor.  I  have  chatted  with 
Indians  who  laughed  and  joked,  with  others  who 
had  a  certain  dreamy  humor,  but  India  as  a 
whole,  as  a  composite,  leaves  the  impression  of 
being  solemn  and  sullen.  There  is  more  laugh- 
ter and  gayety  in  Rangoon  in  one  afternoon  than 
in  all  India  in  a  week.  The  Burmese  are  the 
Parisians  of  the  East.  As  I  look  back  from  a 
distance,  India  seems  sober  even  to  sullenness; 
Burma  gay  and  bright;  Japan  eager,  curious, 
superficial;  and  the  Chinese,  strange  to  say, 
though  proud  and  indifferent,  the  forceful  and 
competent  people  of  the  East.  Sir  Robert  Hart 
writes  of  them:  "Pride  of  race,  pride  of  intel- 
lect, pride  of  civilization,  pride  of  supremacy, 
in  its  massive  and  magnificent  setting  of  bliss- 
ful ignorance."     Once  they  break  through  this 


372       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

shell  of  satisfied  ignorance,  and  take  to  modern 
methods  of  agriculture,  commerce,  and  warfare, 
the  East  will  come  into  her  own  again  indeed. 
Just  now,  we  are  hearing  much  of  Asia  for  the 
Asiatics,  with  Japan  in  control  of  the  movement. 
The  little  boy  Japan  may  have  this  huge  yel- 
low puppy  at  the  end  of  a  string  now,  but  there 
will  be  some  awful  tumbles  for  him  when  the 
puppy  grows  up. 

The  Chinese  are  very  much  in  evidence  where- 
ever  one  goes,  all  the  way  round  the  coast  from 
Calcutta  via  Rangoon,  Penang,  Singapore,  Hong- 
kong, and  as  far  east  and  north  as  the  borders 
of  Russian  Asia.  He  is  industrious,  often  pros- 
perous, sometimes  rich.  Here  in  Burma  he  is 
a  favorite  in  the  matrimonial  market,  as  he  is 
all  through  the  East.  He  may  not  appeal  to 
us  as  a  lady's  man  exactly,  but  he  is  greatly 
fancied  by  the  Burmese,  and  the  women  all 
through  the  Straits  Settlements  and  elsewhere. 
He  supports  his  wife  which  is  considered  a  negli- 
gible duty  by  both  the  Burmese  and  the  Malays. 
In  Rangoon  with  a  population  of  230,000  there 
are  77,000  Hindus,  40,000  Muhammadans,  and 
some  15,000  Chinese.  Like  the  Parsis  in  Bom- 
bay they  seem  much  more  numerous  than  they 
are.  Certain  races  have  the  faculty  of  multiply- 
ing their  visibility.     It  is  almost  impossible  to 


JOHN    CHINAMAN  373 

believe  that  there  are  less  than  a  million  Jews  in 
America,  and  less  than  eleven  million  in  all  the 
world;  and  much  the  same  is  true  of  the  Parsis 
in  India.  By  their  industry,  their  clannishness, 
their  pre-eminence  in  all  matters  dealing  with 
money,  their  facility  in  adapting  themselves 
to  the  rapid  changes  in  the  financial  and  com- 
mercial temperature,  they  have  won  for  them- 
selves a  prominence  out  of  all  proportion  to  their 
numbers.  The  Chinese  emigrants  in  Burma 
and  elsewhere  in  the  Far  East  show  something 
of  the  same  qualities.  They  are  the  money- 
changers, and  the  trusted  handlers  of  money 
in  the  banks,  offices,  and  commercial  houses 
throughout  the  Far  East,  and  even  to  a  limited 
extent  in  Japan. 

There  is  no  caste  system,  no  seclusion  of  the 
women  in  Burma,  and  they  seem  a  happy,  lazy, 
color-loving  lot,  short  and  thick-set  in  build,  with 
a  certain  flatness  of  feature  that  marks  their 
kinship  to  the  Mongolian.  The  men  wear  their 
hair  long,  and  are  without  hair  on  their  faces; 
and  the  women  are  shopkeepers  and  are  seen 
everywhere,  in  the  streets  and  bazaars  and  at 
the  temples,  free  and  busy,  and  judging  from 
their  expression,  light-hearted,  marking  a  change 
and  making  a  change  in  the  street  life,  from  that 
of  India,  as  from  beetles  to  butterflies. 


374        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

Every  civilization  in  the  East  is  old  as  we 
mark  the  passage  of  time,  but  as  compared  with 
the  others,  India  seems  rather  aged  than  old. 
These  merry  people  in  Burma,  the  busy  people 
in  Japan,  the  industrious  and  cheerful  Chinese, 
all  seem  young  by  comparison.  In  this  rich  soil 
and  overwhelming  vegetation,  in  this  land  of 
jade  and  amber  and  rubies  and  teak-wood,  with 
its  twenty  million  acres  of  forests  of  all  kinds 
of  valuable  hard-woods,  with  its  eleven  thousand 
acres  of  rice  fields,  getting;  a  living  is  not  a  diffi- 
cult  matter;  and  the  Burmese  men,  at  any  rate, 
scorn  superfluous  industry. 

Here  too  is  the  home  of  Buddhism,  pagodas 
and  monasteries  are  everywhere,  and  so  far  as  my 
experience  goes,  everywhere  the  monks  are  affa- 
ble and  hospitable.  To  build  a  new  pagoda  is 
a  charity  deemed  by  the  Burmese  to  be  an  act 
more  sure  of  reward  in  the  future  life  than  any 
other;  while  to  repair  an  old  pagoda  carries  no 
weight  at  all  with  those  who  mete  out  salva- 
tion. As  a  consequence  pagodas  with  their 
fringes  of  bells,  and  their  umbrella  tops,  dot 
every  hillside  and  every  conspicuous  bit  of  land- 
scape. 

Every  Burmese  is  supposed  to  shave  his  head, 
don  the  saffron-colored  robe,  and  become  a 
monk  for  a  certain  time,  which  accounts  for  the 


JOHN    CHINAMAN  375 

very  youthful  appearance  and  the  rather  merry 
holiness  of  many  of  the  neophytes  whom  I  met. 
The  monks  are  supported  by  the  voluntary 
contributions  of  the  people,  and  in  return  they 
constitute  themselves  the  school-teachers  of  the 
land.  The  monasteries  are  as  a  rule  built  upon 
piles,  and  are  always  of  one  story,  since  it  is  con- 
sidered derogatory  to  a  priest  that  any  one  shall 
live  above  him.  I  was  told  that  the  population 
is  more  superstitious  than  Buddhistic  in  feeling. 
The  spirits  of  rivers,  mountains  and  forests, 
called  Nats,  are  continually  and  carefully  propi- 
tiated by  most  of  the  people  who,  not  differing 
greatly  from  disciples  of  what  are  deemed  higher 
forms  of  religion,  are  more  conspicuous  in  their 
loyalty  to  the  powers  that  be,  than  obedient  to 
the  mandates  of  the  unseen  and  distant.  We 
might  ourselves  conceive  of  the  powers  of  nature 
as  worthy  of  worshipful  reverence  if  we  lived  in 
Rangoon,  where  the  rainfall  averages  ninety 
inches  per  annum. 

The  good  folk  of  Boston  may  be  disturbed  to 
learn  that  in  the  palace  at  Mandalay  there  is  a 
high  seven-storied  gilded  spire  over  the  throne, 
which  the  Burmese  claim  is  the  centre  of  the 
universe,  or  oV$a\o9  7^5?,  as  they  would  phrase 
it  in  Boston.  Not  being  a  Bostonian,  I  made 
no  comment,  but  I  make  no  doubt  the  Burmese 


376       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

would  recognize  the  absurdity  of  their  pretension 
if  the  rival  claim  were  properly  presented. 

What  Taine  wrote  of  certain  of  the  gaudier 
churches  of  Italy:  "Des  casinos  a  1'  usage  des 
cervelles  imaginatives,"  is  not  a  mere  rhetorical 
slur,  but  a  better  description  than  any  that  I 
can  give  of  these  pagoda  temples  of  Burma. 
While  in  Rangoon  I  spent  most  of  my  time  in 
the  bazaars  and  in  the  precincts  of  the  great 
Shwe  Dagon  Pagoda,  Monks,  nuns,  priests, 
shopkeepers,  jugglers,  peddlers  and  pilgrims 
were  coming  and  going  there  all  day.  Xo  ca- 
sino in  Europe  can  show  a  greater  variety  of 
visitors.  This  pagoda  is  said  to  contain  actual 
relics  of  Buddha,  and  pilgrims  come  from  all 
over  the  Eastern  world,  from  India,  Siam,  Korea, 
to  worship  here.  I  saw  Hindus,  Siamese,  Jap- 
anese, Koreans,  Chinese  there,  all  in  one  morn- 
ing; and  the  sick  and  diseased  carried  in  chairs 
and  litters,  from  what  far-off  regions  I  know  not, 
were  there  too.  It  was  almost  painful  to  see  the 
excitement,  the  awe,  the  scared  expression  on  the 
faces  of  some  of  the  pilgrims,  as  they  made  their 
way  slowly,  and  with  frequent  obeisances,  tow- 
ard the  shrine;  while  others  listen  with  wonder 
in  their  eyes,  as  a  guide  describes  glibly  the 
meaning  of  the  frescoes  on  the  beams  and  panels 
of  the  wooden  roofs,  which  cover  the  long  stairs. 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  377 

They  have  not  been  weaned  from  an  abject 
belief  in  God  in  the  East,  and  I  am  not  sure  that 
this  is  not  the  real  cleavage  between  us.  There 
must  be  a  mighty  difference  between  the  races 
who  believe  in  God  and  the  races  who  invent 
Him. 

If  the  reader  will  look  at  a  map,  he  will  see 
that  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  which  is  a  part  of  the 
Indian  Ocean  really,  which  reaches  up  between 
Ceylon  and  India  on  the  west,  and  the  Straits 
Settlements,  Siam  and  Burma  on  the  east,  has 
two  ports,  Ceylon  and  Singapore,  at  each  end 
roughly  of  the  surrounding  land.  These  two 
ports  are  the  switch-boards  for  all  the  going  and 
coming  between  East  and  West.  Ten  thousand 
vessels,  with  a  tonnage  of  over  ten  million  tons, 
come  and  go  here  at  Singapore  in  a  year,  and 
some  fifteen  thousand  native  craft  besides. 
Bound  north  or  south,  east  or  west,  you  start 
from,  or  change,  or  call  in  passing,  at  Ceylon  or 
at  Singapore,  and  if  it  be  Singapore,  as  in  my 
case,  when  you  get  there  you  can  almost  step  off 
on  to  the  equator. 

Why  that  imaginary  line  attracts  so  much  at- 
tention is  hard  to  explain.  Twice  when  I  have 
crossed  it,  we  were  all  eager  to  know  just  when 
we  should  cross,  as  though  we  expected  a  bump 
or  jar  of  some  sort;    and  the  passengers  on  the 


378       THE    WEST   IN  THE  EAST 

Tara  which  carried  us  from  Rangoon  to  Singa- 
pore seemed  to  feel  that  nearness  to  the  equator 
added  in  some  way  to  one's  dignity. 

To  those  who  only  read  of  the  plague  as  a  de- 
vouring monster  too  distant  for  menace  to  one- 
self, it  is  startling  to  be  obliged  to  appear  before 
a  doctor  for  examination  before  embarking,  and 
to  be  threatened  with  a  heavy  fine  by  the  au- 
thorities at  Singapore,  if  one  fails  to  appear  regu- 
larly each  day,  for  a  certain  number  of  days,  to 
assure  the  health  officer  that  one  is  not  carrying 
about  the  germs  of  disease.  Evidently  warnings 
were  out  all  along  the  coast,  that  the  monster 
was  preparing  for  the  outbreak,  which  some  six 
months  later  began  its  ravages  in  Manchuria. 
Even  a  strong  man  looks  at  his  tongue,  feels  his 
pulse,  watches  his  appetite  for  those  few  days  of 
examination,  with  absorbing  and  anxious  in- 
terest. 

At  Singapore  with  its  two  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  inhabitants,  of  whom  all  but  some  ten 
thousand  are  Asiatics,  one  touches  the  fringe  of 
China  and  the  Chinese.  The  area  of  China  is 
one-third  the  whole  of  Asia  and  half  as  large 
again  as  all  Europe,  and  the  population  of 
China  is  half  that  of  all  Asia  and  about  equal 
to  the  total  population  of  Europe.  No  wonder 
they  spill  over  all  along  these  coasts,  and  the 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  379 

traveller  realizes  that  the  Chinese  are  a  migratory 
people,  and  so  far  as  one  can  see  a  welcome  ad- 
dition to  the  working  population  everywhere. 

There  are  large  communities  of  Chinese  at 
Cholen,  Penang,  Singapore,  Bangkok,  Hong- 
kong, and  at  Rangoon,  Mandalay,  Batavia,  and 
Manila.  They  become  not  only  the  shop- 
keepers and  retailers,  but  they  manage  steam- 
ships, own  mines  and  mills,  and  even  supply  cap- 
ital for  joint-stock  companies.  There  are  more 
Chinese  than  Malays  in  the  Malay  States;  there 
are  some  three  millions  of  them  in  Siam;  they 
are  the  preponderating  power  in  French  Cochin- 
China  and  Tonking,  and  out  of  a  population 
of  320,000  in  Hongkong  310,000  are  Chinese; 
while  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  despite  the 
Chinese  Exclusion  Act,  applied  to  the  Philip- 
pines in  1902,  there  are  some  50,000  Chinese  in 
the  islands,  and  25,000  Americans  and  Euro- 
peans. 

Given  the  opportunity  afforded  by  equal  laws, 
fair  taxation,  absence  of  "squeeze,"  the  short 
name  for  official  embezzlement,  and  they  become 
in  other  countries  not  merely  hard-working  and 
economically  living  coolies,  but  merchants,  ship- 
owners, owners  and  workers  of  mines,  bankers, 
and  rank  in  their  commercial  integrity  with  the 
best.     All  over  the  Far  East,  and  wherever  in 


380        THE    WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

the  West  we  have  dealings  with  the  Chinese, 
there  is  nothing  but  praise  of  their  punctilious 
honesty  and  honor  as  traders.  They  are  a  peo- 
ple of  great  physical  adaptability.  All  climates 
seem  to  suit  them  and  they  are  equally  at  home  in 
Siberia,  in  India,  in  South  America,  or  in  Can- 
ada; and  even  in  the  days  before  American  con- 
trol, wrhen  Panama  was  a  death-trap,  they  went 
there. 

The  Malay  is  a  gentleman,  a  gentleman  of  the 
kind  described  by  an  English  groom :  '  *  'Ad  hall 
the  hinstincts  of  a  gentleman,  'unts,  wears  a  top- 
'at,  and  lives  hout  'Eadingly  way!"  The  Ma- 
lay loves  idleness  and  fine  clothes,  and  upsets 
the  dictum  of  Voltaire  completely:  "Le  repos  est 
une  bonne  chose,  mais  Pennui  est  son  frere,"  for 
he  is  apparently  never  tired  or  bored  by  idleness. 
I  suppose  somewhere  and  sometimes  he  works, 
but  in  the  few  days  I  was  in  and  about  Singa- 
pore, I  never  detected  him  in  any  form  of  useful 
activity.  Perhaps  the  women  support  the  men; 
at  all  events  the  Malays  have  asserted  the  primi- 
tive rights  of  man,  and  it  is  the  men  who  strut 
in  the  fine  feathers.  To  see  a  Malay  in  a  hy- 
brid costume  of  East  and  West  with  a  bowler 
hat  on  the  side  of  his  head,  and  a  cigar  in  the 
corner  of  his  mouth,  taking  the  air  of  an  even- 
ing drawn  by  a  sweating  Chinese,  is  to  see  an 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  381 

economic  puzzle  indeed.  How  he  procures  the 
wherewithal,  and  how  he  asserts  his  right  to  ride, 
is  a  mystery  hidden  away  beneath  the  bowler 
hat.  Even  my  English  friend,  with  a  rubber 
plantation  in  the  interior,  could  give  no  satis- 
factory explanation. 

It  is  the  Chinese  who  do  all  the  work.  A 
Chinese  in  the  shafts  of  a  jinrickisha w  trundled 
me  to  the  hotel  at  Singapore,  a  Chinese  showed 
me  to  my  room,  a  Chinese  waited  on  me  in  the 
dining-room,  and  a  Chinese  made  me  at  home 
when  I  wandered  into  the  Singapore  Club. 

I  have  tested  my  own  training  and  traditions, 
my  principles  and  my  prejudices  carefully,  and  I 
believe  honestly,  but  I  can  give  no  reason  better 
than  mere  instinct  for  my  racial  likes  and  dis- 
likes. To  me  the  Chinese  are  by  far  the  most 
agreeable  people  in  the  East,  but  I  should  find 
it  hard  to  give  any  comprehensive  analysis  of 
Indians,  Malays,  Burmese,  Japanese,  Koreans, 
and  Chinese  to  account  for  this  preference.  I 
know  them  to  be  cruel,  lecherous,  wily,  rapacious, 
and  of  abounding  patience  in  what  we  consider 
wrong-doing,  and  notwithstanding  all  that,  I 
seem  to  detect  something  virile  and  independent 
about  them;  some  quality  of  playing  the  game 
the  way  we  play  it,  that  is  lacking  in  the  others. 

Almost  every  afternoon  when  it  got  cool  enough 


382       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

for  a  walk,  I  wended  my  way  down  the  long 
street  by  the  water-front,  till  I  came  to  the 
swarming  Chinese  quarter,  and  there  I  watched 
them  buying,  selling,  gambling,  eating,  and 
sleeping.  The  coolies  eat  in  the  street.  There 
is  a  long  row  of  out-of-door  restaurants  consist- 
ing of  a  long  table,  with  benches  on  three  sides, 
and  piles  of  food  and  bowls  and  chop-sticks. 
The  proprietor  fills  the  bowl  of  his  customer 
with  steaming  rice,  adds  bits  of  dried  fish,  and 
vegetables,  and  perhaps  puppy-meat,  —  and  why 
not,  since  Hippocrates  himself  held  that  the 
flesh  of  puppies  was  equal  to  that  of  birds,  — 
and  then  begins  a  race  between  the  appetite  and 
the  chop-sticks,  aptly  called  "  nimble-sons," 
which  would  do  credit  to  an  accomplished  pres- 
tidigitator. 

One  fat  old  Chinese  boniface,  behind  one  of 
these  restaurant  tables,  in  his  blue  night-gown 
costume,  and  jaunty  wide-awake  hat,  two  sizes 
too  small  for  him,  on  his  head,  used  to  grin  ap- 
preciatively at  me,  and  no  doubt  cracked  all 
sorts  of  jokes  at  my  expense  with  his  gobbling 
guests,  to  judge  from  his  winks  to  them  and  at 
me,  and  the  smiles  and  chatter  that  followed. 
If  I  had  been  sure  of  my  digestion,  I  should  have 
joined  the  party,  just  for  the  jollity  and  good- 
fellowship. 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  383 

Better-informed  travellers  than  I,  have  re- 
marked upon  this  Chinese  characteristic  of 
cheerfulness,  their  tolerance  of  disagreeable 
things,  their  invincible  contentment,  their  good- 
humor  under  every  kind  of  discomfort,  and 
under  the  severest  bodily  toil ;  as  one  writer  puts 
it:  "They  seem  to  have  acquired  a  national  habit 
of  looking  upon  the  bright  side."  After  the 
listlessness,  the  lack  of  physical  endurance,  the 
furtive  impudence  of  the  southern  Indians, 
the  Chinese  struck  me  as  being  positively  jolly. 
That  this  is  a  racial  trait  is  evidenced  by  the 
difference  between  the  Ghurkhas  in  India,  who 
are  really  Mongolians,  and  all  other  Indians. 
They  too  love  a  joke,  a  good  story,  and  are 
invincibly  cheerful,  and  many  Englishmen  say, 
the  best  soldiers  in  India.  If  this  be  true,  one 
wonders  why  some  day  the  Chinese  may  not 
recover  from  their  present  classification  of 
human  value,  which  puts  the  scholar  first,  the 
farmer  next,  the  artisan  next,  and  the  mer- 
chant and  the  soldier  last;  and  give  the  man  of 
action  his  proper  place  in  the  social  hierarchy. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  dream  as  long  as  dreams 
are  not  your  master;  all  very  well  to  think  so 
long  as  thoughts  are  not  your  aim,  as  Kipling 
well  says;  for  neither  dreams  nor  thoughts  are 
more  than  glistening  colored  bubbles  unless  they 


384       THE   ^^EST   IN  THE   EAST 

be  translated  into  belief  and  action.  When  one 
sees  Chinese  school-boys  of  all  ages  drilling  and 
marching  and  carrying  real  guns ;  when  one  sees 
a  well-equipped  mountain-battery  out  for  exer- 
cise and  practice,  as  I  did,  one  gets  a  notion 
that  the  Chinese  are  indeed  making  ready  for 
action.  The  great  wall  of  China  was  begun 
before  the  Christian  era  and  was  building  for 
seventeen  hundred  years,  but  the  Chinese  move 
more  quickly  now. 

Unfortunately  for  my  plans,  the  Chinese  on 
the  Yangtse  River  were  indulging  in  a  mo- 
mentary dislike  of  missions  and  missionaries, 
and  translating  their  prejudices  into  murders  and 
bonfires,  just  at  the  time  that  I  arrived  in  Hong- 
kong. The  Yangtse  River  is  navigable  by  bat- 
tle-ships for  two  hundred  and  thirty  miles,  or 
as  far  up  as  Nanking,  and  as  far  as  Han-Kow 
by  vessels  of  considerable  size,  and  is  the  Missis- 
sippi River  trade  route  of  China.  It  takes  its 
rise  in  the  far-off  mountains  of  Thibet,  and  is 
some  three  thousand  miles  in  length,  and  navi- 
gable for  about  two  thousand  miles.  Instead  of 
going  from  Hongkong  to  Shanghai,  and  then  up 
this  great  Yangtse  River  to  Han-Kow,  and  then 
across  country  to  Peking,  I  was  obliged  to  leave 
this  interesting  journey  for  more  peaceful  times. 
I  suppose  a  civilization  cutting  its  teeth,  on  the 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  385 

way  from  one  stage  of  growth  to  another,  must 
necessarily  behave  in  a  fretful  and  sometimes 
violent  manner  ;  and  just  at  the  time  I  was 
wondering  and  dreaming  over  the  possibility  of 
a  Chinese  nation  armed  and  in  action,  a  fraction 
of  the  population  turned  to  breaking  heads  and 
burning  meeting-houses,  forcing  the  authorities 
to  refuse  permission  to  travellers  to  journey  in 
that  direction. 

To  those  of  us  who  know  something  of  the  be- 
havior of  the  European  troops  during  the  Boxer 
troubles,  of  the  cruelties  of  Cossacks  and  Jap- 
anese and  others ;  of  the  killing  of  men,  women 
and  children;  of  the  rifling  of  graves,  and  the 
breaking  open  of  coffins  to  get  at  the  money  that 
the  Chinese  bury  with  their  dead,  and  the  use 
of  these  coffins  as  dining-tables ;  to  those  of  us 
who  know  these  things,  there  is  little  excuse  to 
be  made,  and  small  reason  for  surprise  when  the 
Chinese  indulge  in  similar  atrocities.  Perhaps 
there  is  something  of  the  Tartar  in  all  of  us  when 
we  are  scratched  deep  enough.  What  the  Chi- 
nese saw  of  us  on  our  way  to  relieve  Peking  was 
not  calculated  to  impress  them  with  our  gen- 
tleness, our  honesty,  or  our  qualifications  to  pose 
as  examples  of  a  higher  form  of  civilization. 

For  my  personal  acquaintance  with  the  Chi- 
nese, I  was  obliged,  therefore,  to  content  myself 


386       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

with  what  I  saw  of  them  along  the  coast,  and  at 
Hongkong,  Canton,  and  in  Manchuria. 

I  know  of  nothing  more  destructive  of  the 
sense  of  proportion  than  a  map  unaccompanied 
by  a  time-table.  It  was  three  weeks  or  more 
before  I  reached  Hongkong  from  Calcutta,  a 
journey  which  looks  much  shorter  on  the  map. 
But  steamers  do  not  always  connect  to  suit  one's 
personal  itinerary,  and  where  they  do  there  may 
be  no  accommodation  for  the  pilgrim,  who  travels 
not  according  to  Cook  but  as  his  fancy  dictates. 

Hongkong  in  the  language  of  diplomacy  was 
ceded:  in  plain  English,  was  taken,  in  1842,  by 
the  British  from  the  Chinese.  Whether  the 
quarrel  was  a  matter  of  opium  trading,  or  of 
unwarranted  aggression  on  the  part  of  the  Chi- 
nese, does  not  concern  us  here,  and  had  best 
be  left  to  the  limbo  of  academic  discussion.  At 
all  events  British  governing  here  has  accom- 
plished what  both  the  Chinese  and  the  British 
may  well  be  proud  to  show  to  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Sixtv  years  ago  it  was  a  convenient  nest 
for  the  daring  Cantonese  pirates;  and  then,  as 
still  to-day,  the  Cantonese  were  reckoned  the 
most  turbulent,  restless,  and  daring  population 
in  all  China. 

What  Sir  William  des  Voeux,  a  former  gov- 
ernor, writes  of  Hongkong  is  all  true,  and  the 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  387 

description  might  be  even  more  brightly  colored 
without  exaggeration.  "Long  lines  of  quays 
and  wharves,  large  warehouses  teeming  with 
merchandise,  shops  stocked  with  all  the  luxuries, 
as  well  as  the  needs  of  two  civilizations;  in  the 
European  quarter  a  fine  town-hall,  stately  banks, 
and  other  buildings  of  stone;  in  the  Chinese 
quarter  houses,  constructed  after  a  pattern  pecu- 
liar to  China,  of  almost  equally  solid  materials, 
but  packed  so  closely  together  and  thronged  so 
densely  as  to  be  in  this  respect  probably  without 
parallel  in  the  world  (one  hundred  thousand  peo- 
ple live  within  a  certain  district  not  exceeding 
half  a  square  mile  in  area),  and  finally  streets 
stretching  for  miles,  abounding  with  carriages 
(drawn  for  the  most  part  not  by  animals  but  by 
men),  and  teeming  with  a  busy  population,  in 
the  centre  of  the  town  chiefly  European,  but 
toward  the  west  and  east  almost  exclusively 
Chinese.  .  .  .  And  when  it  is  further  remembered 
that  the  Chinese,  whose  labor  and  enterprise 
under  British  auspices  have  largely  assisted  in 
this  development,  have  been  under  no  com- 
pulsion, but  have  come  here  as  free  men,  at- 
tracted by  liberal  institutions,  equitable  treat- 
ment, and  the  justice  of  our  rule;  when  all  this 
is  taken  into  account,  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
the  evidences  of  material  and   moral  achieve- 


388       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

ment,  presented  as  it  were  in  a  focus,  make  any- 
wliere  a  more  forcible  appeal  to  eye  and  imagi- 
nation." What  the  English  have  accomplished 
here  and  elsewhere;  what  we  Americans  have 
done  in  improving  the  Philippine  Islands,  and 
the  almost  fairy-like  change  that  has  been 
wrought  by  the  American  army  engineers  and 
surgeons  in  the  canal  district  at  Panama,  stand 
out  as  imperishable  monuments,  not  merely  of 
our  honorable  intentions,  but  of  our  unequalled 
efficiency  as  altruistic  governors  of  alien  peoples 
and  of  strange  lands.  Nor  Rome,  nor  any 
modern  power,  can  point  to  such  colossal  suc- 
cesses in  brotherly  helpfulness,  untainted  by 
even  the  suspicion  of  corruption. 

It  was  my  privilege  to  travel  across  Siberia 
with  the  present  Governor  of  Hongkong,  Sir 
Frederick  Lugard.  He  told  me  something  of 
his  plans  for  a  university  at  Hongkong.  Sir 
Frederick  is  the  kind  of  advocate  of  peace  in 
whom  one  believes.  Bearing  many  wounds  as 
the  result  of  his  soldiering,  and  of  his  successful 
campaigns  for  peace  and  orderliness  in  Uganda, 
he  is  now  fostering  the  splendid  peace  plan  of 
an  international  university  at  Hongkong. 

Why  does  not  some  American  of  wealth,  who 
believes  in  peace  rather  than  in  self-advertising, 
give  a  handsome  sum  of  money  for  the  founda- 


JOHN    CHINAMAN  389 

tion  of  one  or  more  chairs  to  be  filled  by  Ameri- 
can professors  in  this  university,  which  is  al- 
ready under  way,  the  foundation-stone  having 
been  laid  last  year?  An  American  chair  of 
History  of  Commerce,  or  of  Ethnic  Religions,  to 
be  filled,  say  two  years  at  a  time,  by  a  lecturer 
chosen  from  among  the  many  American  scholars 
who  are  interested  in  furthering  a  better  under- 
standing between  the  East  and  the  West;  this 
would  be  a  worthy  gift  indeed  from  the  American 
nation,  which  has  already  assured  the  Chinese 
of  our  belief  in  fair-play  by  the  generous  return 
to  China  of  an  overpayment  for  losses  during 
the  Boxer  uprising.  The  Chinese  have  been  no 
less  gracious  to  us.  China  sent  her  first  general 
Embassy  to  foreign  countries  in  1868.  Her  "En- 
voy Extraordinary  and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  " 
was  the  Hon.  Anson  Burlingame,  accompanied 
by  two  Chinese,  who  appear  as  "Associated  High 
Envoys  and  Ministers."  The  wording  of  the 
United  States  Treaty  of  1868,  and  the  diplomatic 
correspondence  at  the  time,  show,  therefore,  that 
China  confided  to  an  American  the  task  of 
framing  new  treaties,  and  of  representing  her  in 
the  delicate  negotiations  dealing;  with  her  rela- 
tions  with  foreign  nations. 

As  early  as  1785  we  sent  a  trading-ship  to 
China,  and  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury saw,  what  the  Chinese  still  call  our  country, 


390       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

the  "flowery  flag,"  on  the  fastest  sailing-ships 
afloat,  in  Chinese  ports.  By  the  Treaty  of 
Washington  in  1868  we  disclaimed  all  intention 
of  interfering  in  Chinese  affairs,  and  down  to 
this  present  time  we  have  taken  the  attitude  of 
fair-play  as  between  other  nations  and  China, 
and  what  is  more  to  the  point,  of  fair-play  for 
China  as  well.  Such  a  gift  would  not  only  be 
a  direct  and  permanent  means  of  promoting  that 
sympathetic  understanding  which  makes  for 
peace,  but  it  would  be  at  the  same  time  another 
link  between  the  one  hundred  and  forty  millions 
of  us  who  speak  the  English  language.  The 
gift  of  half  a  million  dollars  for  such  a  purpose 
would  mean  that  the  voice  of  America's  picked 
scholarship  would  be  heard  for  generations  by 
the  chosen  students  of  China.  That  would  be 
indeed  worth  while. 

I  was  intending  to  write  of  four  aspects  of 
Hongkong  which  won  my  interest.  First,  of 
course,  of  her  neighbor  Canton;  then  of  the  un- 
equalled collection  of  Chinese  porcelain  of  Sir 
Paul  Chater;  next  of  the  charm  of  the  "Peak," 
and  then  of  Sir  Frederick  Lugard,  and  his  plans 
for  an  international  university  now  under  way. 
It  is  significant  that  the  university  plan  ran 
away  with  my  pen  first,  as  soon  as  I  found 
myself  writing  of  Hongkong;  and  I  should 
consider  it  a  year's  hard  travel,  and  hard  work 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  391 

well  paid  for,  if  one  of  my  many  countrymen, 
with  the  means  at  his  command,  should  be 
tempted  to  pledge  America's  co-operation  in  this 
wise  method  of  linking  East  and  West  together 
in  the  only  bonds  that  are  lasting,  those  of  in- 
tellectual sympathy  and  mutual  understanding. 

The  "Peak,"  so  called,  in  Hongkong  is  the 
hill  overlooking  the  harbor,  which  has  been 
sown  and  planted  till  it  is  the  garden  as  well  as 
the  residential  part  of  the  town.  A  funicular 
railway  lifts  you  to  the  top,  and  once  there,  par- 
ticularly of  a  starlight  night,  with  the  hundreds 
of  lights  twinkling  on  the  vessels  in  the  harbor 
below;  for  it  is  one  of  the  great  harbors  of  the 
world,  and  one  constantly  filled  with  craft  of  all 
kinds;  the  picture  takes  its  place,  and  remains 
in  the  memory,  alongside  the  wonderful  harbor 
at  Rio  de  Janeiro ;  the  harbor  at  San  Francisco ; 
and  the  fabulous  and  mythical  aspect  of  New 
York  harbor,  with  its  extortionate  demands  upon 
credulity,  when  one  sees  the  high  buildings 
looming  behind  the  Statue  of  Liberty,  at  dusk 
or  at  dawn. 

Whatever  may  be  the  gastronomic  limitations 
of  the  stewards  of  the  steamship  lines  in  this 
quarter  of  the  world,  Sir  Paul  Chater  is  not 
hampered  by  them.  I  will  not  say  that  his 
luncheon  was  equal  to  the  treasures  of  porce- 


392       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

lain  which  he  showed  me,  but  it  was  in  keeping 
with  them.  For  years  he  has  been  buying  and 
sifting,  and  with  all  China  knowing  that  he 
stood  ready  as  a  purchaser  of  anything  rare  and 
beautiful.  As  a  result  his  collection  of  Chinese 
porcelains  is  to  other  collections,  whether  public 
or  private,  as  are  the  prints  of  a  college  fresh- 
man to  the  engravings  in  the  British  Museum. 
And  what  a  revelation  of  the  Chinese  it  is,  to  see 
here  these  wonders  of  their  deftness,  their  purity 
of  style,  their  feeling  for  color,  in  their  days  of 
artistic  supremacy,  in  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century. 

A  people  of  such  industry,  of  such  cheerfulness, 
of  such  endurance,  of  such  commercial  and  ar- 
tistic prowess:  how  is  it,  one  asks  oneself,  that 
they  remain  so  behind  in  the  competitive  race  of 
the  nations  ?  The  honesty  and  uprightness  of 
Chinese  merchants  and  bankers  is  as  prover- 
bial throughout  the  world  as  is  the  shiftiness 
and  untrustworthiness  of  the  Japanese  of  the 
same  class;  while  on  the  other  hand,  the  official 
corruption  in  China  spreads  throughout  the  land 
like  a  gangrene,  eating  away  at  all  national  en- 
terprises, and  maiming  the  industrial  hands  and 
feet,  in  every  effort  to  move. 

This  strange  difference  between  the  commer- 
cial   code    and   the  official    code    in    China    is 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  393 

confusing.  The  merchant's  word  is  as  good 
as  his  bond,  while  the  official  all  over  China 
lives  openly  upon  "squeeze."  No  government 
official  is  intended  to,  or  can  possibly  live  upon, 
his  pay.  The  old-time,  and  by  far  the  easiest, 
method  for  an  autocratic  rule  is  to  farm  out  the 
taxes,  to  demand  a  certain  sum  of  the  officials 
appointed,  and  to  leave  it  to  them  to  get  what 
they  can  for  themselves.  This  was  once  the 
way  in  India  and  in  Japan,  and  later  in  Rome 
and  in  France.  Indeed,  the  historical  memory 
need  not  be  long  to  recall  the  days  when  the 
British  House  of  Commons  was  bought  and 
sold  like  a  flock  of  sheep;  and  the  ominous 
growl:  "To  the  victors  belong  the  spoils"  is  still 
heard,  though  sotto  voce,  in  America  to-day. 

I  suppose  there  is  no  business  man  in  our 
country  who  would  not  jump  at  the  chance  to 
take  over  our  post-office  department,  with  its  ex- 
clusive privileges,  prepared  to  make  a  fortune. 

It  is  no  doubt  honestly  conducted,  so  far  as 
pilfering  is  concerned,  but  the  offices  and  officials 
therein  are  all  political  spoils.  The  tenure  is 
uncertain,  there  is  no  reward  for  efficiency,  and 
no  temptation  to  work  harder  than  bare  neces- 
sity requires.  There  is  no  barefaced  "squeeze," 
but  the  government  is  cheated  all  over  the  coun- 
try by  perfunctory  labor,  by  skimped  hours  of 


394       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

work,  and  by  the  lack  of  enthusiasm  of  those 
who  feel  themselves  to  be  working  for  a  soulless 
monster  with  no  means  and  no  intention  of  re- 
warding personal  efficiency  and  devotion.  In  a 
fashion,  we  farm  out  to  the  victorious  political 
party  this  opportunity  to  repay  its  adherents 
and  its  workers,  and  waste  enormous  sums  on 
what  is  practically  mortpay.  No  one  doubts 
for  a  moment  that  if  our  post-office  department 
were  managed  as  is  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road, for  example,  with  every  employee  chosen 
and  kept  and  rewarded  for  efficiency  and  ability, 
there  would  be  dividends  instead  of  deficits. 

We  need  not,  therefore,  throw  up  our  hands 
in  horror  at  the  Chinese.  In  an  attenuated,  but 
still  perceptible  form,  the  philosophy  of  Chinese 
"squeeze"  exists  to-day  in  the  bureaucracy  of 
every  government  in  Europe  and  in  the  Ameri- 
cas. What  Chinese  gentlemen  would  think  of 
the  petty  and  contemptible  pilfering  of  "Favors," 
which  is  a  feature  of  every  fashionable  cotillon 
in  our  country,  the  more  flagrant  the  more  val- 
uable the  "Favors,"  is  best  left  unanswered. 

China  is  the  more  easily  the  victim  of  this 
political  malady  in  a  virulent  form  because  its 
capital  at  Peking  is  not  centrally  situated,  rail- 
ways are  few,  good  roads  unknown,  the  post- 
office  a  negligible  quantity;    and  consequently 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  395 

outside  the  territory  just  around  Peking  the 
officials  of  the  vast  Empire  are  under  little  or  no 
supervision  or  restraint. 

One  has  only  to  see  something  of  these  vast 
stretches  of  territory  without  railroads,  without 
telegraph  offices,  and  with  few  post-offices  to 
learn  how  much  we  owe  to  our  own  railroads 
for  their  efficiency  as  moral  agents.  Leaving 
out  of  the  count  any  question  of  commerce,  the 
United  States  to-day  would  be  a  great  federal 
political  and  moral  chaos  without  its  railroads; 
and  yet  I  have  never  heard  them  alluded  to 
even  as  having  any  ethical  value.  It  is  right  to 
debate  these  questions  whether  in  a  republic  or 
in  China.  The  value  of  the  debate,  however, 
depends  altogether  upon  the  tone  and  temper 
of  the  discussion.  I  believe  in  insurgency.  In- 
surgency is  the  only  political  or  social  purgative 
of  any  value  in  a  democracy;  but  the  insurgent 
must  be  neither  a  fanatic  nor  a  fakir;  he  is,  alas, 
all  too  often  one  or  the  other;  and  America 
has  suffered  of  late  from  a  veritable  plague  of 
left-handed  Catos.  Therefore,  I  counsel  my 
readers  to  adopt  my  method.  As  an  observer, 
as  a  traveller,  as  a  student,  I  know  of  no  instru- 
ment of  criticism  so  helpful  as  sympathy.  You 
must  like  a  man  to  get  out  of  him  the  best  he 
has  to  give.     Mere  denunciation  is  a  weapon  of 


396       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

the  ethical  age,  of  the  eocene  lemur,  and  the 
calcareous  sponge. 

If  the  Chinese  cure  themselves  of  this  disease 
of  official  peculation  it  is  hard  to  set  a  limit  to 
their  national  or  commercial  progress.  The 
Abbe  Hue  writes:  "The  Chinese  is  born  with 
this  taste  for  traffic,  which  grows  with  his  growth 
and  strengthens  with  his  strength.  The  first 
thing  a  child  looks  for  is  a  sapeck ;  the  first  use 
that  he  makes  of  his  speech  and  intelligence  is 
to  learn  to  articulate  the  names  of  coins;  when 
his  little  fingers  are  strong  enough  to  hold  the 
pencil,  it  is  with  making  figures  that  he  amuses 
himself,  and  as  soon  as  the  tiny  creature  can 
speak  and  walk  he  is  capable  of  buying  and 
selling.  The  Chinese  has  a  passionate  love  of 
lucre;  he  is  fond  of  all  kinds  of  speculations  and 
stock-jobbing,  and  his  mind,  full  of  finesse  and 
cunning,  takes  delight  in  combining  and  calcu- 
lating the  chances  of  a  commercial  operation." 

The  shrewdest  comment  ever  made  upon  the 
methods  of  our  Stock  Exchange  was  made  by  a 
Chinese.  Prince  Li  Hung  Chang  was  escorted 
to  Wall  Street,  and  in  a  certain  broker's  office 
he  was  shown  a  "ticker"  machine  rolling  off  the 
prices  of  stocks.  It  was  expected  by  his  host 
that  he  would  be  astonished,  if  not  bewildered, 
at  these  financial  heart-beats  made  visible  on  a 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  397 

strip  of  paper.  When  asked  what  he  thought  of 
it,  he  replied:  "I  think  I  should  prefer  to  play 
in  a  game  where  I  can  see  the  cards  shuffled." 

A  few  hours  by  steamer  from  Hongkong,  upon 
the  Canton  River,  brings  one  to  China  as  we  pict- 
ure China  to  ourselves;  for  Canton  contains  all 
the  materials,  from  pig- tails  to  puppies,  which 
supply  the  Western  imagination  with  its  notions 
of  the  Chinese.  Canton  is  surrounded  by  a  wall 
six  or  seven  miles  in  circumference,  and  is  filled, 
literally  filled,  if  the  eye  is  to  be  trusted,  with  a 
population  of  something  under  a  million.  You 
settle  yourself  in  a  sedan-chair  borne  by  four 
coolies,  and  you  are  carried  swiftly  through  the 
narrrow  streets,  nowhere  more  than  seven  feet 
wide,  and  the  noise  and  the  smells  and  the 
traffic  and  the  sights  and  scenes  are  so  numb- 
ing, that  one  sympathizes  with  the  man  who 
found  himself  with  so  much  to  do  that  he  went 
a-fishing.  It  is  as  impossible  at  first  to  make 
out  what  this  swarm  of  people  are  doing  as  to 
disentangle  the  activities  of  an  ant-hill. 

The  river  itself  is  thronged  with  boats  upon 
which  thousands  of  families  live  from  one 
year's  end  to  the  other.  Some  of  them  even  have 
small  plots  of  earth  on  them,  in  which  seeds  are 
planted,  and  very  few  of  them  lack  chickens  and 
dogs  and  babies;  and  a  net  let  down  into  one 


398       THE    ^^EST   IN   THE   EAST 

of  those  family  gondolas  would  bring  up  the 
strangest  and  most  ill-assorted  catch  that  ever 
fisherman  landed. 

The  girl  babies  must  have  but  a  small  chance 
in  this  land  of  infanticide,  with  a  watery  grave 
so  convenient.  Who  has  ever  heard  the  mem- 
bers of  a  family  even  at  home  say:  yes,  we  have 
a  new  baby,  if  that  baby  is  a  boy;  or  neglect  to 
proclaim:  yes,  we  have  a  new  baby  boy!  In 
China  they  carry  this  prepossession  in  favor  of 
the  male,  as  they  do  still  to  some  extent  in  India 
and  Japan,  to  its  cruel  logical  conclusion.  In 
the  Chinese  characters  or  ideographs  used  for 
writing,  a  woman  with  a  lid  on  her  is  the  word 
for  Quiet,  while  three  women  together  is  the 
ideograph  for  Noise.  In  this  swarming  life,  the 
girl  who  must  have  a  dot  when  she  marries,  and 
who  is  incompetent  to  carry  on  the  worship  of 
the  ancestors,  which  alone  in  China  is  the  uni- 
versal form  of  worship  prescribed  and  accepted, 
is  often  looked  upon  as  an  inconvenient  burden, 
and  if  so  widely  recognized  an  authority  as  the 
Rev.  Arthur  II.  Smith  is  to  believed,  is  often  dis- 
posed of  by  murder. 

Both  here  and  later  I  came  into  contact  with 
a  number  of  the  better-class  Chinese,  as  their 
guest  or  as  a  fellow-guest.  They  are  much 
easier  in  their  manners,  more  composed  and  self- 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  399 

reliant,  more  dignified,  than  either  the  Indians 
or  the  Japanese.  Even  a  European  of  standing 
and  social  experience  might  find  it  a  trying  or- 
deal to  be  the  only  one  of  his  race  present,  say 
at  a  dinner  where  all  the  other  guests  were  Chi- 
nese, Japanese,  Koreans,  and  Indians.  On  one 
occasion,  at  a  meal  where  fourteen  of  us  were 
present,  there  was  one  Chinese,  but  no  one  there 
was  more  at  his  ease,  more  agreeable,  or  better 
mannered  than  he;  and  I  should  add  that  he 
spoke  no  English,  and  had  never  travelled  far 
out  of  his  own  country.  He  is  the  one  Oriental, 
except  a  few  of  the  great  Indian  nobles,  who 
seems  quite  unembarrassed,  quite  sure  of  his 
social  and  racial  position,  and  who  gives  no  evi- 
dence, either  by  awkward  bumptiousness  or  by 
sycophancy,  that  he  is  ill  at  ease. 

The  traveller  who  only  sees  the  Chinese  in  this 
swarming  human  ant-hill  at  Canton,  or  in  similar 
crowded  colonies  elsewhere,  gets  little  notion  of 
the  superior  qualities  of  the  race.  While  those 
who  only  see  the  Chinese  coolies  in  the  various 
Chinatowns  of  the  Western  world;  who  read  of 
plague  and  famine  and  of  attacks  upon  mission- 
aries; who  have  heard  of  the  terrible  Taiping 
rebellion  led  by  Hung  Hsien-Chuen,  a  Christian 
convert,  and  which  was  first  a  religious  and  then 
a  political  crusade  in  which  twenty  million  lives 


400       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

were  lost;  who  remember  the  Boxer  trouble, 
and  its  terrors,  have  as  false  an  idea  of  China 
and  the  Chinese  as  the  English  village  laborer 
has  of  America,  who  believes  it  to  be  a  land  of 
conflagrations,  railroad  accidents,  divorces,  lynch- 
ings  and  blatant  millionaires  whose  chief  exercise 
consists  in  throwing  their  daughters  at  British 
peers  in  the  hope  of  bagging  their  coronets. 

For  example,  it  is  a  universally  held  belief  in 
the  West  that  the  smells  in  China  are  almost 
weighable.  This  is  true,  because,  as  here  in 
Canton,  there  is  no  effort  at  sanitation  except  in 
the  European  quarter.  But  the  Chinese  them- 
selves do  not  smell;  on  the  contrary  they  smell 
us,  and  find  the  odor  most  disagreeable.  We 
eat  strong  food,  and  many  of  us  drink  strong 
drinks;  the  Chinese  do  not.  On  the  hottest 
day,  in  a  room  filled  with  Chinese,  there  is  no 
disagreeable  odor  from  their  persons.  No  one 
with  a  wholesome  and  unprejudiced  sense  of 
smell  can  say  as  much  for  us. 

It  is,  I  must  confess,  unpleasant  to  see  in  their 
markets  dogs  trussed  up  and  ready  to  sell,  and 
cat  meat,  rat  meat,  hawks  and  other  unpalata- 
ble birds,  reptiles  and  animals  and  eggs  dating 
back  to  a  former  dynasty,  and  cakes  of  fried 
grasshoppers  offered  as  food.  A  Chinese,  on  the 
other  hand,  might  well  be  shocked  at  the  external 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  401 

decorations  of  our  butcher-shops  at  Christmas 
time,  when  we  express  our  good-will  to  men  by 
devouring  a  greater  variety  of  animal  food,  both 
wild  and  tame,  than  at  other  times;  he  might 
also  suggest,  in  these  days  when  speculation  has 
entered  the  funereal  field  of  cold  storage,  that 
whether  eggs  or  butter  or  fish  or  chickens  date 
from  the  reign  of  Taft  or  Roosevelt  or  Cleveland, 
or  from  Tai-tsung  of  the  Tang  dynasty,  who 
edited  the  Chinese  classics  in  two  hundred  thou- 
sand volumes  a  thousand  years  ago,  is  merely  a 
matter  of  taste,  he  himself  preferring  the  Tai- 
tsung  vintage  to  a  later  one. 

We  have  a  way  of  putting  our  Western  moral 
and  mental  machinery  inside  the  Oriental  body, 
and  then  of  mapping  out  the  probable  processes 
of  development  accordingly.  There  is  no  surer 
way  of  arriving  at  false  conclusions.  Not  long 
ago  I  read  an  article  in  one  of  our  magazines  in 
which  the  writer  said:  "Within  eighteen  months 
China  will  have  a  parliament  or  a  revolution." 
This  is  the  typical  journalese  bosh  of  those  who 
are  satisfied  to  make  a  sensation  by  turning  the 
epitaphs  of  truth  into  head-lines.  The  Chinese 
never  do  anything  in  so  short  a  time  as  eighteen 
months,  and  they  are,  moreover,  profoundly  sus- 
picious of  those  who  do.  We  ourselves  just  now, 
both  at  Washington  and  in  many  of  our  State 


402       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

legislatures,  are  spending  our  time  and  ingenuity 
in  disentangling  ourselves  from  hastily  framed 
laws.  The  logical  outcome  of  our  law-making 
pace  will  be  a  code  of  laws  for,  and  applicable 
to,  each  individual  inhabitant,  and  then  Quis 
custodiet  custodes? 

The  inveterate  distinction  between  the  East 
and  the  West  is  as  deeply  cut  in  the  racial  life 
of  to-day  as  ever  it  was.  Even  in  Japan,  it  is 
apparent  beneath  the  thin  lacquer  of  Occident- 
alism; while  in  China,  the  educated  Chinese 
will  tell  you  that  his  government  is  far  more 
stable  than  that  of  any  European  or  American 
state;  that  orderliness  is  not  more  frequently  dis- 
turbed than  in  the  revolutionary,  lynching,  war- 
ring and  strike-producing  West;  that  he  has  an 
ethical  code  equal  to  that  of  the  West,  and  a  re- 
ligion the  mandates  of  which  are  observed  as 
loyally  as  our  own.  We  write  and  speak  of  the 
East  from  a  maze  of  unabashed  ignorance;  and 
they  on  their  part  do  not  trouble  to  correct  or  to 
contradict  us. 

That  the  Chinese  are  formulating  plans  to  pro- 
tect themselves  from  further  commercial  aggres- 
sion, and  from  the  persistent  grabbing  of  their  ter- 
ritory by  their  Christian  well-wishers,  is  true;  but 
it  is  done  that  they  may  remain  more  securely 
Chinese,  not  that  they  may  adopt  our  Western 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  403 

institutions   and  constitutions,  as  the  glib  and 
superficial  among  us  are  pleased  to  proclaim. 

Those  who  have  no  past  of  tradition,  culture 
or  experience,  may  be  pardoned  for  assuming 
that  there  is  nothing  but  the  present,  but  only 
pardoned  because  they  are  ignorant,  not  because 
they  are  right.  They  think  their  own  tombs 
and  temples  unsurpassed  because  they  know 
nothing  of  the  pyramids  and  tombs  of  Egypt; 
they  think  the  statues  and  architecture  of  our 
Western  cities  unequalled  because  they  have 
never  heard  of  Pheidias  and  Praxiteles,  and  the 
Taj  and  the  Alhambra;  they  rejoice  in  modern 
dramatists  who  know  not  the  names  of  iEschy- 
lus  and  Aristophanes ;  they  presume  to  grade  all 
literature,  to  whom  Pindar  and  Lucretius  are 
dim  shades;  they  volunteer  short  histories,  to 
whom  Herodotus  and  Thucydides  are  unknown; 
and  they  rate  China  low  who  have  never  met  a 
Chinese  gentleman,  never  dealt  with  a  Chinese 
merchant,  never  read  a  line  of  Chinese  literature 
or  history,  and  who  do  not  know  the  name  of 
Confucius.  This  is  a  ragged  and  unkempt  way 
of  dealing  with  other  peoples,  who  may  have 
some  reason  to  scorn  what  we  cherish.  When 
one  recalls  such  names  and  monuments,  it  be- 
comes clear  that  there  is  room  for  the  argument 
that  in  certain  directions  our  evolution  may  look 


404       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

like  deterioration  to  those  who  examine  us  im- 
partially from  a  distance.  Galton  writes  that  the 
average  Athenian  was  as  much  superior  to  the 
average  European  of  to-day  as  we  are  superior 
to  the  African  negro. 

We  are  closely  connected  with  the  East,  and 
we  are  asking  commercial  favors  of  the  East; 
we  are  demanding  that  we  may  share  in  loans  to 
them  nowadays,  and  it  is  therefore  an  awkward 
time  to  write  and  to  talk  of  them  with  that  flip- 
pant condescension  born  of  ignorance  and  inex- 
perience. The  attitude  of  our  great  democra- 
cies that  everything  which  is  different  is  therefore 
inferior,  and  fair  game  for  ridicule,  is  the  atti- 
tude of  the  small  boy  in  a  village  street,  who 
laughs  and  jeers  at  a  new  figure  or  a  strange 
costume.  It  is  sheer  intellectual  hooliganism, 
It  is  the  business  of  those  better  informed,  and 
therefore  more  sympathetic,  to  persuade  our 
great  unwieldy  mass  of  ignorant  voters  that  the 
wave  of  mastery  and  influence  from  West  to 
East  is  now  on  the  wane.  The  East  is  rapidly 
becoming  strong  enough  to  be  independent,  and 
to  make  terms,  instead  of  having  terms  dictated, 
as  from  a  superior  to  an  inferior. 

Mr.  Taft,  who  by  his  training  and  experience 
at  least,  and,  as  I  personally  believe,  by  his  up- 
rightness of  character,  is  as  well  fitted  for  the 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  405 

office  he  holds  as  any  executive  we  have  ever 
had,  shows  how  valuable  his  imperial  experi- 
ence has  been  when  he  points  to  Peking  as  the 
most  difficult  post  in  our  diplomatic  service;  be- 
cause it  is  the  foreign  post  of  greatest  opportu- 
nity, and  requiring  the  most  suave,  dignified 
and  competent  methods.  We  want  no  "new 
diplomacy"  there,  with  its  bustle  and  hustle 
and  its  furtive  bribery. 

The  Lord  deliver  us  from  the  hack  politician 
in  the  East,  in  these  difficult  days.  The  man  of 
that  type,  who  may  and  does  fool  the  people  at 
home,  will  not  deceive  the  Chinese  for  an  instant. 
As  in  India,  the  British  Government  must  pick 
and  choose  with  care  its  military  and  civilian 
officials,  because  whatever  else  they  lack  the 
Indians  are  unerring  in  detecting  the  difference 
between  the  Sahib  and  the  non-Sahib,  and  giv- 
ing him  their  confidence  accordingly ;  so  in  China 
there  are  not  only  Chinese  gentlemen  ranking 
in  probity  and  courtesy  with  any  in  the  world, 
but  there  are  four  million  pairs  of  eyes  with  an 
almost  uncanny  ability  to  discriminate  between 
the  shoddy  and  the  genuine  in  gentlemanliness ; 
and  we  shall  measure  our  influence  accurately 
and  inevitably  by  the  type  of  men  we  send  there 
as  our  representatives.  Our  commerce  with 
China,  which  has  decreased  since  1905  from  some 


406       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

fifty-eight  million  to  about  fifteen  million  dollars, 
and  our  narrowly  avoided  humiliation  in  a  late 
loan  transaction,  ought  to  stir  us  to  a  realization 
of  our  slovenly  assumption  that  in  dealing  with 
the  Chinese  we  are  dealing  with  barbarians  and 
inferiors. 

Those  jammed,  seven-foot- wide  streets  in 
Canton,  with  the  coolies  swinging  by  with  long 
poles  weighted  with  merchandise  at  each  end 
of  them;  those  tiny  shops  filled  with  furs,  em- 
broideries, linen,  ivory,  carved  furniture,  and 
their  keepers  fingering  the  abacus,  or  counting 
over  their  goods;  one  shop  filled  with  valuable 
ivories  and  jade  and  feathers,  cunning  carvings 
and  gold  ornaments,  and  beside  it  another,  whose 
occupant  carries  on  some  primitive  handicraft 
with  the  awkward  implements  of  a  thousand 
years  ago ;  the  dozen  shop  assistants  who  tumble 
down  a  narrow  stairway  into  the  tiny  sales-room 
when  we  enter  to  look  at  Mandarin  coats,  and 
who  all  enter  into  the  bargaining  with  a  zeal  that 
shows  that  this  is  no  dull  routine,  but  a  combi- 
nation of  a  game  and  an  entertainment,  with  a 
money  prize  in  proportion  to  the  success  of  the 
suave  duplicity  displayed;  in  another  shop  the 
astonishing  swiftness  and  deftness  and  orderli- 
ness with  which  they  pull  out,  and  put  back, 
and    fold    up    the  hundreds  of  pieces  of  grass- 


JOHN   CHINAMAN  407 

cloth  and  linen  and  embroideries  shown  us;  the 
temples  populated  with  unknown  gods;  mort- 
uary chapels  where  polished  teak-wood  or  ma- 
hogany coffins,  with  a  stand  beside  them  on 
which  are  placed  a  light  and  tea  and  rice,  and 
whose  occupants  wait  till  the  soothsayer  has  de- 
termined upon  the  fortunate  place  for  burial, 
a  suspense  which  lingers  according  to  the  wealth 
of  the  family  of  the  deceased;  the  edible  dog 
market;  the  sleepy  admiral  in  his  magnificent 
silk-lined  and  gilt-ornamented  chair,  borne  by 
six  coolies,  and  escorted  by  Chinese  marines 
with  old-fashioned  muskets  over  their  shoulders ; 
the  unending,  penetrating  noise  which  your 
ears  seem  to  breathe  like  an  atmosphere;  the 
undisturbed  and  mask-like  yellow  faces  and  nar- 
row unlighted  eyes;  the  utter  indifference  to  the 
lack  of  privacy,  a  characteristic  of  all  Orientals, 
and  one  which  I  often  think  explains  their  back- 
wardness, for  it  is  impossible  to  store  up  ex- 
perience, which  is  the  only  motive  power  of  real 
progress,  except  by  quiet  thought;  the  persist- 
ent touters  who  follow  us  with  beseechings  to 
visit  their  shops;  the  sweating  coolies  who  bear 
our  chairs,  and  who  feign  awful  exhaustion  after 
a  particularly  long  trip,  and  who  laugh  and 
poke  fun  at  one  another  when  I  insist  upon 
feeling  their  heart-  and  pulse-beats,  and  thus  dis- 


408       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

cover  to  what  extent  they  are  play-acting.  All 
this  is  China,  but  do  not  be  deceived;  that  wise 
old  Li  Hung  Chang  was  China  too;  and  hun- 
dreds more  like  him  who  have  studied  in  Eng- 
land, Germany,  America  and  Japan  are  China 
too;  and  unlike  too  many  of  us,  they  have 
learned  the  quintessence  of  wisdom,  that  the 
cleverest  conceal  their  cleverness. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  if  there  is  to  be 
amity  and  fair  dealing  between  us,  that  the  first 
step  must  be  taken  by  us,  and  that  in  the  di- 
rection of  correcting  false  impressions,  and  of 
convincing  our  own  people  of  their  abysmal 
ignorance  of  the  real  China.  The  complacent 
assumption  that  China  has  only  to  copy  us  to  be 
saved,  which  is  practically  universal  in  America, 
is  a  gutter-stage  of  intellectual  enlightenment, 
and  as  dangerous  as  it  is  ludicrous.  In  very 
many  respects  ours  is  no  more  a  civilization  to  be 
copied  than  is  theirs;  and  we  should  never  for 
a  moment  forget  that  the  Chinese,  high  and  low, 
educated  and  uneducated,  those  who  have  seen 
us  and  those  who  have  not,  look  upon  us  as  bar- 
barians; and  hold  that  many  of  our  social  and 
political  doings  are  foul  blots  upon  the  ethno- 
logical map,  upon  which  the  races  of  the  world 
have  traced  their  progress. 


X 

JAPAN 

THE  first  edition  of  the  "  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica"  had  this  much,  and  no  more, 
to  say  of  Japan:  "Japan  or  Islands 
of  Japan,  are  situated  between  130  deg.  and  144 
deg.  of  E.  long.,  and  between  30  deg.  and  40  deg. 
N.  lat."  Some  twenty-five  words  sufficed  to  tell 
the  world  all  that  anybody  cared  to  know  about 
Japan.  During  the  last  quarter  of  a  century, 
Japan  has  more  written  words  of  description  to 
her  credit  than  any  other  country  in  the  world. 
It  is  characteristic  of  the  childlike  innocence,  or 
of  the  duplicity,  of  the  Japanese,  that  even  their 
historical  ancestry  is  a  gross  forgery.  During 
the  last  Paris  exhibition,  and  at  the  last  Japan- 
British  exhibition,  one  saw  and  heard  a  great 
deal  of  Japan's  two  thousand  five  hundred  years 
of  history,  and  of  the  authentic  ancestry  of  the 
Mikado,  reaching  back  not  for  hundreds  but 
for  thousands  of  years.  This  is  taught  in  the 
schools  of  Japan  to-day,  and  told  to,  and  written 
for,  foreigners  by  the  Japanese  themselves. 

409 


410       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

A  Mr.  Hitomi,  a  Japanese,  writes  for  the 
French  public:  "La  Longue  duree  de  l'Empire 
du  Soleil  Levant  est  une  des  choses  les  plus  mer- 
veilleuses  de  ce  monde.  Quand  il  vit  la  lumiere 
tous  les  pays  Europeens  d'aujourd'hui  dormaient 
encore  dans  les  entrailles  du  chaos.  C'est  333 
ans  avant  la  conquete  des  Indes  par  Alexandre 
le  Grand  et  612  ans  avant  la  victoire  de  Cesar 
sur  Pompee  que  Jimmu,  premier  empereur  du 
Japon,  placa  le  berceau  de  l'Empire  parmi  les 
fleurs  odoriferantes  des  plaines  du  Yamato." 
As  a  bouquet  of  artificial  rhetorical  flowers  this 
has  seldom  been  equalled.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
the  first  date  in  Japanese  history  which  is  trust- 
worthy is  A.  D.  461.  Fable  and  fact  do  not  be- 
gin to  separate  until  that  date. 

As  late  as  1892  one  professor  of  history  at  the 
University  of  Tokio  was  dismissed  for  writing 
critically  of  the  early  mikados;  as  a  result  we  find 
in  a  successor's,  Mr.  Haja's,  "Lectures  on  Ja- 
pan" the  following:  "Some  of  the  odes  preserved 
in  the  Kojiki  and  Nihongi  were  composed  by  the 
gods,  some  by  Jimmu  Tennu  and  other  ancient 
Mikados, and  one  by  a  monkey!"  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain, in  "Things  Japanese,"  writes:  "The  so- 
called  historical  part  is  as  devoid  as  the  other  of 
all  contemporary  evidence.  It  is  contradicted  by 
the   more    trustworthy,    because    contemporary, 


JAPAN  411 

Chinese  and  Korean  records,  and  —  to  turn  from 
negative  to  positive  testimony  —  can  be  proved 
in  some  particulars  to  rest  on  actual  forgery. 
For  instance,  the  fictitious  nature  of  the  calen- 
dars employed  to  calculate  the  early  dates  for 
about  thirteen  centuries  (from  B.  C.  660  onward) 
has  not  altogether  escaped  the  notice  even  of  the 
Japanese  themselves,  and  has  been  clearly  ex- 
posed for  European  readers  by  that  careful  in- 
vestigator, the  late  Mr.  William  Bramsen,  who 
says,  when  discussing  them  in  the  Introduction 
to  his  'Japanese  Chronological  Tables':  'It  is 
hardly  too  severe  to  style  this  one  of  the  greatest 
literary  frauds  ever  perpetrated.' ' 

The  story  of  the  ancient  civilization  of  Japan 
is  as  much  a  fable  as  the  story  of  the  Golden 
Fleece,  or  Ariadne.  That  this  mythology  is 
taught  in  Japanese  schools,  and  written  down 
for  the  European  as  history,  is  due  to  the  ex- 
treme sensitiveness  and  colossal  conceit  of  the 
Japanese,  and  also  because  the  worship  of  the 
Imperial  Ancestry  is  made  a  national  religion 
amongst  the  mass  of  the  people.  Once  the 
small  knot  of  feudal  nobles,  who  still  govern 
Japan,  lose  the  influence  of  the  worshipped 
Mikado,  whom  they  always  call  upon  in  the  last 
resort  to  drive  home  their  legislative  enactments 
among  the  people,  the  political  troubles  of  Japan 


412       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

will  begin  in  earnest.  They  know  him  to  be  a 
puppet  king,  but  they  realize  that  so  long  as  the 
present  feeling  of  the  people  toward  him  lasts, 
his  sanction  is  practically  the  sanction  of  omnipo- 
tence. No  wonder  it  is  criminal  to  criticise,  or 
even  to  discuss,  the  subject  of  his  ancestry. 
Once  the  superstitious  awe  in  which  the  Japan- 
ese Emperor  is  held  by  the  people  disappears, 
Japan  will  be  like  a  study-table  covered  with 
papers,  in  a  breeze,  when  the  paper-weights 
have  been  taken  away. 

The  most  interesting  date  in  the  history  of 
Japan  to  the  American  is  1853,  when  Commo- 
dore Perry  appeared  and  demanded,  and  in  1854 
succeeded  in  obtaining,  certain  treaty  rights 
granted  also  shortly  after  to  England,  France, 
and  Russia.  Japan  at  that  time  was  governed 
by  a  feudal  noble  of  the  house  of  Tokugawa. 
The  founder  of  this  dynasty  was  a  soldier,  Hide- 
yoshi  by  name,  who  conquered  Korea,  and 
dreamed  even  of  conquering  China  in  the  last 
years  of  the  sixteenth  century.  His  favorite 
lieutenant  Tokugawa  Iewasu  turned  against 
Hideyoshi's  son,  defeated  him  in  battle,  consoli- 
dated his  own  power,  and  for  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years,  or  till  Commodore  Perry  appeared, 
this  family  ruled  Japan,  the  Emperor  living  in 
retirement    but    treated    with    respect    by    the 


JAPAN  413 

powerful  Shoguns,  the  Daimyos  or  barons,  and 
their  men-at-arms  the  Samurai. 

The  nation  which  can  survive  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  of  peace  is  either  negligent  or  neg- 
ligible. 'Japan  was  both  negligent  and  negli- 
gible. The  great  nobles  and  their  followers 
had  softened  and  shrunk  both  in  power  and 
ability.  The  jealousies,  dissatisfactions  and  ri- 
valries came  to  life  when  the  barbarians'  ships 
appeared  in  the  harbor  of  Yeddo.  The  Shogun 
was  shuffling  and  hesitating,  torn  between  fear 
of  the  barbarian  intruder,  and  of  his  enemies 
athome  if  he  treated  with  him.  Rivals  of  the 
house  of  Tokugawa  combined  against  them. 
Instead  of  the  clan  patriotism  they  saw  that  they 
must  have  national  patriotism.  Clan  jealousies 
and  enmities  must  be  subordinated  to  national 
defence  against  the  invader.  It  was  seen  that 
to  keep  out  the  European  was  impossible,  and 
those  in  power  persuaded  their  countrymen  that 
it  was  better  to  learn  of  the  foreigner  than  to  fight 
him.  By  1871  the  clans  and  the  feudal  lords  had 
given  up  their  rights  and  privileges.  Europeans 
were  invited  to  Japan  to  teach,  and  the  Japanese 
were  studying  European  methods  in  England,  in 
America,  in  Germany,  and  in  France.  Many  of 
these  Japanese,  including  the  greatest  among 
them,  the  late  Prince  Ito,  were  poor  and  with- 


414       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

out  friends,  and  earned  their  living,  while  they 
studied  and  investigated,  among  strangers.  The 
story  of  these  patriotic  Japanese,  who  emigrated 
voluntarily  to  hardship  and  unfriendliness  for 
their  country's  sake,  is  one  that  any  country 
might  be  proud  to  tell. 

What  the  Japanese  have  built,  upon  the  foun- 
dations so  patiently  and  painfully  laid  by  these 
men,  is  reckoned  the  outstanding  and  pre-emi- 
nent national  accomplishment  of  the  last  fifty 
years.  Nobody  can  deprive  them  of  their  com- 
mercial, political  and  military  successes,  and  so 
far  as  I  know,  nobody  wishes  to  do  so.  If  Japan 
has  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  Europeans,  she 
has  suffered  from  eulogy  rather  than  from  de- 
traction. Unstinted  and  uncritical  praise  has 
been  her  portion.  She  has  been  the  young  heir 
just  come  of  age  among  the  nations.  We  have 
all  gone  to  the  coming-of-age  festivities,  with 
best  wishes  and  friendly  words,  ready  to  see  only 
good  in  the  youngster  who  has  just  come  into  his 
own,  and  with  the  liveliest  and  sincerest  charity 
for  youth,  and  the  natural  shortcomings  of  its 
exuberance  and  lack  of  experience.  But  the 
vagaries,  impetuosities,  and  inconsequences  of 
youth  receive  a  different  greeting,  and  other 
names  and  epithets,  when  they  are  continued  on 
into  early  manhood.     We  rejoice  at  the  baby's 


JAPAN  415 

first  word,  his  first  tooth,  his  first  step;  we  won- 
der at  the  amazing  amount  of  knowledge  and 
experience  he  acquires  in  his  first  five  years.  If 
he  could  continue  at  that  rate  through  life,  he 
would  easily  out-Solomon  Solomon  in  wisdom. 
We  soon  discover  that  the  rate  of  progress  di- 
minishes as  the  years  increase,  and  we  cease  to 
find  his  acquisition  of  knowledge  and  experi- 
ence unusual. 

Who  does  not  know  men  whose  youth  had  its 
frailties,  its  oddities,  its  selfish  inconsequences, 
which  then  were  only  gay  and  graceful;  but  in 
maturity,  the  frailties  have  fixed  themselves  in 
a  rosy  formlessness  of  nose ;  the  oddities  of  man- 
ner have  become  unpleasant  eccentricities;  the 
inconsequence  has  become  untrustworthiness. 
The  very  qualities  that  were  not  unpleasing  in 
the  youth,  have  become  contemptible  in  the 
man.  Youth  has,  and  ought  to  have  in  the 
bank  of  all  our  hearts,  a  balance  of  a  thousand 
pardons  to  draw  upon;  but  of  maturity  we  de- 
mand that  the  credit  balance  shall  be  the  results 
of  saving  and  economy  and  accomplishment. 

Japan  has  had  her  first  tooth,  and  taken  her 
first  step,  amid  the  wondering  admiration  of 
other  peoples.  She  has  built  ships,  organized 
commerce,  founded  a  government,  fought  out  a 
war.     She  is  no  longer  an   infant  nor  a  callow 


416       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

youth.  New  standards  of  judgment  are  being 
used  in  the  measuring  of  her  political,  commer- 
cial, ethical  and  social  stature;  and  both  Japan 
and  her  later  critics  are  frankly  disappointed. 

The  days  for  the  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  and  Laf- 
cadio  Hearn  literary  petting  and  dandling  of  the 
baby  Japan  have  gone  by.  It  was  all  mawkish 
enough  at  any  time,  and  did  Japan  harm  that 
lasts  to  this  day;  and  my  Japanese  friends  would, 
I  am  sure,  consider  it  a  grotesque  study  in  insult 
were  I  to  write  to  them,  or  about  them,  in  the 
cooing  and  soft-syllabled  noises  of  a  nurse  dan- 
dling a  baby.  I  have  no  intention  of  doing  so. 
I  am  merely  an  advanced  picket  for  my  country- 
men, returning  to  describe  what  I  saw,  and  mak- 
ing no  claim  to  infallibility  or  to  a  cut-and-dried 
solution  of  the  problems  awaiting  us  in  the  East. 
I  bring  merely  maps,  sketches,  descriptions, 
opinions,  surmises,  and  all  without  malice  or 
prejudice,  except  that  I  am  an  American,  and  if 
that  be  treason,  I  must  submit  to  punishment 
from  those  I  describe,  in  good  part. 

For  nearly  a  score  of  years  I  have  been  a 
visitor,  from  time  to  time,  to  a  town  in  New  Eng- 
land which  is  more  closely  linked  to  the  history  of 
Japan  than  any  other  town  in  the  world.  Why 
the  Japanese  Government  has  not  put  up  a  tab- 
let or  a  monument  in  the  town  of  Fairhaven, 


JAPAN  417 

Massachusetts,  I  do  not  understand.  It  must 
be  due  to  ignorance  of  the  short  story  I  am  about 
to  tell. 

Captain  Whitfield,  of  Fairhaven,  master  of  the 
ship  John  Howland,  sighted,  on  a  bare  rock, 
in  the  Sea  of  Japan,  a  group  of  stranded,  ship- 
wrecked Japanese  sailors.  This  was  in  the  year 
1841.  He  took  them  off  and  carried  them  to  his 
first  port,  Honolulu.  One  of  them,  a  lad  of 
about  fifteen,  begged  to  be  taken  on  with  the 
ship.  By  the  time  the  John  Jlowland  reached 
her  home  port  of  Fairhaven,  the  boy  had  picked 
up  some  smattering  of  the  English  language,  and 
was  liked  by  the  whole  ship's  company.  Cap- 
tain Whitfield  paid  for  his  schooling  at  a  good 
private  school  in  the  town,  and  there  is  still 
living  there,  one  at  least,  of  his  school-mates, 
who  has  described  him  to  me.  The  boy's  name 
was  Nakahama  Manjiro.  At  the  end  of  six 
years  Nakahama  was  one  of  the  accomplished 
scholars  in  the  school,  and  particularly  interested 
in  mathematics  and  navigation.  Through  Cap- 
tain Whitfield's  good  offices,  he  was  enabled  to 
pick  up  his  former  companions  at  Honolulu,  and 
to  return  to  Japan,  where  he  arrived  about  the 
year  1849.  He  had  almost  forgotten  his  own 
tongue.  He  and  his  companions  were  suspected, 
and  kept  in  close  confinement,  and  their  story 


418       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

doubted.  As  a  test  of  the  truth  of  his  tale  he 
was  given  the  task  of  translating  Bowditch's 
"Navigator,"  the  theory  of  which  he  had  tried 
to  explain  to  his  countrymen,  into  Japanese. 
This  he  succeeded  in  doing  after  a  year  or  more 
of  work. 

When  Commodore  Perry  received  a  letter  in 
English,  in  reply  to  his  note  to  the  ruler  of  Japan 
in  1853,  he  little  knew  that  the  writer  of  it  had 
learned  his  English  in  a  New  England  town  not 
far  from  the  home  port  of  the  Commodore  himself. 
When  he  had  his  interview  in  person,  he  little 
suspected  that  concealed  within  hearing  was  a 
Japanese,  whose  assurances  of  the  good-will  and 
honorable  intentions  of  the  Americans,  from  a 
personal  experience  of  their  kindness  and  hospi- 
tality, was  to  carry  greater  weight  with  the  rulers 
of  Japan  than  the  noise  and  size  of  his  guns. 
If  any  one  individual  is  to  be  credited  with 
making  the  first  intercourse  between  Japan  and 
America  easy  and  friendly,  it  is  surely  Naka- 
hama  Manjiro,  who  Avas  educated  in  Fairhaven, 
Massachusetts.  He  afterward  became  a  per- 
sonage in  Japan,  was  ennobled,  navigated  the 
first  ship  out  of  sight  of  land  from  that  country, 
was  sent  by  the  Mikado  to  study  the  conditions 
during  the  war  between  France  and  Germanv  in 
1870,  paid  a  short  visit  to  America  on  his  way 


JAPAN  419 

home,  and  leaves  two  sons,  one  a  distinguished 
professor,  and  the  other  an  officer  in  the  Japan- 
ese navy. 

I  believe  Japan  only  needs  to  be  reminded  of 
this  to  ask  the  honor  of  commemorating  in  some 
suitable  and  permanent  manner  the  hero  of  this 
story,  in  the  town  which  gave  him  a  home  and 
an  education. 

It  is  a  far  cry  indeed  from  the  Japan  of  the  first 
edition  of  the  "Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  or  the 
Japan  of  1853,  to  the  Japan  from  which  I  have 
just  returned.  It  is  now  a  Japan  with  a  popu- 
lation estimated  at  50,000,000;  with  compul- 
sory education  and  compulsory  military  service; 
with  an  army  of  a  peace  strength  of  250,000,  and 
able  to  put  and  maintain  800,000  in  the  field; 
with  191  war  vessels  aggregating  493,371  tons, 
and  an  expenditure  on  the  navy  during  the  last 
four  years  placed  at  $133,807,000;  with  nearly 
5,000  miles  of  railways  and  18,000  miles  of  tele- 
graph lines;  with  exports  to  Great  Britain  of 
25,522,000  yen,1  and  imports  from  Great  Britain 
of  107,796,000  yen;  with  exports  to  the  United 
States  of  121,997,000  yen,  and  imports  from  the 
United  States  of  77,637,000  yen;  and  with  ex- 
ports to  and  imports  from  Germany  of  7,976,- 
000  and  46,179,000  yen  respectively.     The  popu- 

1  The  yen  is  worth  50  cents  in  gold. 


420       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

lation  is,  six-tenths  of  it,  engaged  in  agriculture, 
and  one-tenth  dependent  upon  the  fisheries,  or 
35,000,000  thus  employed.  So  mountainous, 
barren,  and  difficult  is  the  land,  that  even  these 
people  of  ant-like  industry  and  economy  can 
only  bring  one-sixth  of  the  total  area  of  147,651 
square  miles  under  cultivation,  and  more  than 
one-half  of  this  area  is  given  over  to  the  culti- 
vation of  rice  alone.  The  foreigners  in  Japan 
number  19,094;  the  Japanese  abroad  number 
195,272,  of  whom  95,000  are  residents  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  our  colonies. 

After  a  struggle  between  the  clans  of  the  south : 
the  Satsuma,  the  Choshin,  the  Tosa  and  the 
Hizen;  and  the  Tokugawa  regime,  which  had 
been  in  power  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  be- 
fore the  coming  of  Commodore  Perry,  the  clans 
and  their  leaders,  with  splendid  patriotic  magna- 
nimity, gave  up,  ostensibly,  not  only  their  pow- 
ers but  their  wealth;  but  be  it  understood  they 
retained  and  still  retain  an  overwhelming  influ- 
ence in  affairs  of  state;  members  of  these  clans 
fill  practically  all  the  offices  of  importance  in 
the  state,  the  army,  and  the  navy.  It  is  still  a 
government  by  an  oligarchy,  in  which  nepotism 
plays  a  large  part.  The  Emperor  was  once  more 
put  in  a  position  of  real  power,  and  the  House 
of  Peers  and  the  House  of  Representatives,  con- 


JAPAN  421 

stituting  the  Imperial  Diet  of  Japan,  created  by 
the  constitution  of  February,  1889,  met  for  the 
first  time  in  November,  1890. 

The  House  of  Peers  is  composed  of  three 
classes:  hereditary,  comprising  the  imperial 
princes  and  the  higher  nobility,  sitting  in  their 
own  right;  nominated,  comprising  persons 
named  by  the  Emperor  for  services  to  the  state, 
and  for  their  learning;  elected,  including  the 
majority  of  the  peerage,  holding  their  seats  for 
seven  years,  and  consisting  of  a  number  of  vis- 
counts and  barons  elected  by  their  own  orders, 
representatives  of  the  various  provinces  returned 
subject  to  the  approval  of  the  Emperor,  and  by 
small  electoral  bodies  composed  of  the  highest 
taxpayers.  The  House  of  Peers  numbers  about 
280  members. 

The  House  of  Representatives  numbers  379, 
a  fixed  number  being  returned  from  each  elec- 
toral district,  the  proportion  being  1  to  about 
127,000.  This  lower  house  sits  for  four  years, 
and  is  bound  to  meet  once  every  year  for  at 
least  three  months.  These  members  are  re- 
turned upon  a  taxpaying,  residential,  and  age 
franchise.  The  electors  must  be  male  Japanese 
subjects  of  not  less  than  full  twenty-five  years  of 
age.  The  members  of  both  the  House  of  Peers 
and  the  House  of  Representatives  receive  $1,000 


422       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

a  year,  besides  travelling  expenses.  This  Im- 
perial Diet  has  control  over  the  finances.  Min- 
isters, or  officials  of  their  departments  designated 
by  these  ministers,  sit  in  the  chamber,  but  only 
at  their  own  option,  to  defend  their  departments 
or  to  answer  questions.  The  Japanese  bor- 
rowed their  military  methods  from  Germany, 
and  their  parliamentary  model  was  evidently 
German  as  well. 

On  examining  the  constitution  of  these  two 
houses  it  is  seen,  even  by  the  reader  of  so  slight 
a  sketch  as  this,  how  preponderating  may  be  the 
control  of  the  Emperor.  The  ministers  or  cabi- 
net are  nominated  by,  and  are  the  servants  of, 
the  Emperor.  They  are  not  responsible  to  the 
Diet,  and  may  remain  in  office  as  long  as  the  Em- 
peror so  pleases.  The  government  thus  legislates 
through  two  chambers  without  being  responsible 
to  either.  The  lower  house  is  almost  of  neces- 
sity an  opposition.  So  it  has  proved  itself. 
More  than  once  the  government  has  found  itself 
balked  and  brought  to  a  stand-still.  Then  the 
still  awesome  power  of  the  Emperor  is  called  in. 
He  sends  an  imperial  message  to  the  recalcitrant 
or  truculent  members  that  such  unseemly  par- 
liamentary conflicts  are  "likely  to  disturb  the 
spirits  of  my  ancestors,"  then  after  a  confer- 
ence between  the  government  and  the  opposition, 


JAPAN  423 

the  Budget  for  the  year,  let  us  say,  is  passed. 
But  Hamlet  cannot  forever  be  appealing  to  the 
ghost.  There  will  come  a  time  when  the  deep 
voice  from  nowhere  will  be  laughed  at  and 
flouted;  and  when  the  mystic  power  invoked 
will  be  analyzed  and  found  to  be,  as  it  is, 
vaporous. 

There  is  no  state,  no  official  religion.  The 
lower  classes  are  still  devoted  to  their  old  shrines, 
their  old  wooden  idols,  the  mandates  of  their 
ignorant  Buddhist  and  Shinto  priests ;  and  they 
still  contribute,  what  for  a  poor  people  are  enor- 
mous sums,  for  the  maintenance  and  building 
of  shrines  and  temples. 

One  of  the  features  of  Japanese  civilization 
to-day  is  the  bands  of  pilgrims  one  sees  all 
over  the  country,  from  little  family  parties  to 
parties  of  thousands,  on  their  way  to  this  shrine 
or  that,  or  to  Fuji,  or  some  other  sacred  moun- 
tain. At  some  of  these  places  prostitutes  are 
provided  for  the  pilgrims.  This  outrages  our 
sense  of  decency  and  appeals  to  us  as  coarse  and 
crude  blasphemy;  but  not  one  Japanese  in  a 
thousand  can  even  understand  such  an  attitude 
of  mind  or  such  a  phase  of  morality.  With  us 
this  matter  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes  is  recog- 
nized universally  not  only  as  immoral  but  crimi- 
nal.    It  is  only  fair  to  the  Japanese  to  explain 


424       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

that  their  attitude  is  so  distinctly  different  from 
our  own  in  this  matter,  that  they  are  no  more  to 
be  judged  harshly  on  this  subject  than  are  chil- 
dren who  take  candy  that  does  not  belong  to 
them,  or  who  go  too  near  the  fire  before  they 
know  that  fire  burns.  There  is  even  no  word, 
in  Japanese,  for  male  chastity.  Every  child  of 
the  present  Mikado  is  the  offspring  of  a  concu- 
bine.    The  Empress  has  borne  no  children. 

The  upper  and  educated  classes  are  sceptical, 
or  frankly  agnostic.  At  one  time  the  Catholics, 
and  at  another  the  Unitarians,  sincerely  believed 
that  Japan  was  about  to  become  Catholic  or 
Unitarian.  The  Japanese  are  great  nibblers 
intellectuallv.  Their  gentleness  of  manner,  and 
apparent  receptivity,  lead  the  foreign  missionary 
to  believe  that  he  is  making  headway;  and  like 
other  men  he  loses  no  opportunity  to  proclaim 
his  success  to  his  co-religionists  at  home,  only  to 
find  that  mere  curiosity  was  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Japanese  reception  of  him  and  his  message; 
and  that  at  the  end  of  a  few  years  the  Japanese 
are  nibbling  as  politely,  and  as  smilingly  as  ever, 
at  some  other  sectarian  cheese.  Nor  are  the 
missionaries  to  blame,  for  among  missionaries  it 
would  be  hard  to  match  the  honor-roll  of  names 
beginning  with  Francis  Xavier,  and  coming  down 
to  Verbeck,  Brown,  Hepburn,  and  Gale  in  Korea. 


JAPAN  425 

It  is  not  only  in  religious  and  ethical  fields,  that 
the  Japanese  wander  and  browse  with  no  great 
seriousness  of  purpose.  It  looked  at  one  time 
as  though  the  Japanese  intended  to  adopt  Euro- 
pean costumes,  but  in  1888  the  cry  of  Japan  for 
the  Japanese  was  heard,  and  there  was  a  revo- 
lution of  feeling,  and  a  general  change  back  to 
Japanese  dress.  Their  fads  are  innumerable. 
They  have  gone  in  for  rabbits,  for  cock-fighting, 
for  wrestling,  for  waltzing,  for  picnics  on  a  grand 
scale,  for  elaborate  funerals,  and  they  discussed 
seriously  the  question  as  to  whether  April  Fool's 
Day  should  be  celebrated,  all  at  different  times; 
and  one  after  the  other  these  have  been  neg- 
lected and  forgotten,  and  they  have  discarded 
one  faith  or  one  fad  after  another,  with  the 
same  nonchalance  with  which  they  have  changed 
back  and  forth,  to  and  from  the  European  cos- 
tume. It  must  not  be  deduced  from  this  that 
I  am  criticising  the  Japanese  as  an  unstable 
people  of  whims  and  fancies.  These  excursions, 
religious,  social  and  sartorial,  may  be  merely 
trial  trips  in  the  search  for  the  best.  In  what  I 
write,  I  try  to  explain  to  my  countrymen;  there 
is  no  malicious  nor  mischievous  intention  to  fo- 
ment ill-feeling,  nor  to  excite  ridicule;  that  role 
may  best  be  left  to  those  who  count  a  fleeting  and 
sectional  popularity  as  sufficient  payment  for  the 
sale  of  one's  own  soul. 


426       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

The  one  all-pervading  influence  has  ever  been, 
and  is  to-day,  nor  has  it  lost  its  hold  altogether 
even  upon  the  sceptics,  ancestor-worship:  wor- 
ship and  service  for  the  ancestors  of  the  family, 
of  the  clan,  and  of  the  Emperor.  When  the 
woman  is  married,  her  name  is  stricken  off  the 
records  of  her  father's  family,  and  added  to  that 
of  her  husband,  and  she  becomes  a  worshipper 
of  his  ancestors;  the  loyalty  to  clan  and  to  clan 
ancestors  still  persists;  and,  as  I  have  written, 
the  loyalty  to  the  Emperor  and  the  imperial  an- 
cestry is  like  our  patriotism  of  the  best  kind, 
and  keeps  all  the  divergent  interests  submissive, 
and  remains  still  as  the  last  court  of  appeal. 

The  regime  of  the  Shoguns,  a  word  equivalent 
in  meaning  to  the  Roman  Imperator,  which  in- 
troduces us  to  the  Japan  we  know,  and  which 
lasted  from  1600  to  1868,  meant  270  Daimyos, 
with  their  Samurai  or  noble  vassals,  and  1,500,- 
000  dependent  upon  them,  and  this  pinnacle 
supported  by  a  base  of  what  were  practically 
30,000,000  serfs.  Even  thirty  years  ago  not  one 
person  in  ten  could  afford  even  rice,  but  lived  on 
barley,  or  barley  and  a  little  rice;  now  six  out  of 
ten  have  a  square  meal  of  rice  every  day. 

It  was  this  arrangement  of  society  which  ex- 
plains both  the  present  strength  and  weakness  of 
Japan.  Not  to  remember  that  these  people  are 
only  just  emerging  from  feudalism,  from  clan 


JAPAN  427 

government,  and  that  the  origins  of  such  ethical 
systems  and  sanctions  as  they  have,  have  their 
roots  in  Confucianism,  which  is  agnostic  and 
monarchial,  and  in  the  subservient  loyalty  of 
man  to  master,  and  of  the  Sir  Galahad  loyalty  as 
between  brothers  in  arms,  described  in  their  code 
of  Bushido,  is  to  leave  Japan  a  sealed  book. 

The  fierce  patriotism  animating  those  who  with 
shouts  of  delight  charged  again  and  again  over 
lines  of  their  own  slain  against  Russian  breast- 
works ;  what  does  it  mean  ?  The  patient,  smiling 
stoicism ;  what  does  it  mean  ?  The  domestic  and 
moral  slavery  of  the  women ;  what  does  it  mean  ? 
The  commercial  chicanery  and  unconscious  con- 
sciencelessness,  from  the  twenty-four  members 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  now  in  prison 
in  connection  with  the  sugar  frauds,  and  the 
First  Army  Division  scandal  in  regard  to  tenders 
for  new  depots,  down  to  the  three  thousand 
weights  and  measures  captured  by  the  police  of 
Tokio,  in  a  simultaneous  raid  upon  the  dealers 
in  rice ;  what  does  it  mean  ?  The  self-sacrificing 
patriotism,  and  simple  honorable  living  of  Prince 
Ito,  and  other  men  like  him;  what  does  it  mean  ? 
The  jump,  from  knights  in  chain  armor,  with 
two-handled  swords,  to  the  latest  fashion  in 
dreadnoughts,  and  this  in  one  generation;  what 
does  it  mean  ?     A  constitution,  an  army,  a  navy, 


428        THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

a  complete  school  system  and  miles  of  progress 
along  the  road  of  industrial  and  commercial 
competition,  the  defeat  of  one  great  European 
power,  and  an  alliance  with  the  greatest  power 
of  all,  the  British  Empire;  what  does  it  all  mean  ? 

The  gains  are  so  gigantic,  the  changes  have 
been  so  swift,  the  child  has  become  so  surrepti- 
tiously a  strong  man,  that  enthusiasts  shout:  a 
miracle!  Poets  praise  without  stint  and  with 
facts  wreathed  in  the  flowers  of  rhetoric;  and 
travellers  interpret  the  bows  and  smiles  of  shop- 
keepers and  Geisha  girls  into  a  national  certifi- 
cate for  courtesy;  and  readers  in  foreign  lands 
either  shiver  in  fear  of  the  "Japanese  Peril,"  or 
are  hypnotized  into  believing  that  here  at  last 
is  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth  of  the  Book 
of  Revelations.  A  world-wide  false  impression  of 
Japan  has  been  given  by  the  eclogues  of  Euro- 
pean visitors,  whose  opinions  would  be  more 
valuable  had  they  seen  less  of  her  women  and 
known  more  of  her  men.  Cant  is  not  peculiar 
to  the  Puritan;  the  Cavaliers,  the  literary  Cav- 
aliers, have  a  cant  of  their  own. 

However  easily  satisfied  the  rest  of  the  world 
may  be,  with  fantastic  and  superficial  explana- 
tions and  descriptions  of  the  origins,  and  the 
present  status,  and  the  probable  results  of  this 
Japanese  civilization,  we  Americans  are  vitally 


JAPAN  429 

concerned  to  know  as  much  as  we  can  of  nothing 
but  the  truth.  What  has  most  impressed  the 
world  is  the  suddenly  developed  military  prowess 
of  the  Japanese.  The  victory  over  the  Chinese 
is  a  negligible  laurel.  The  Chinese  are  a  people 
who  have  idealized  for  centuries  the  student  and 
the  merchant,  and  despised  the  warrior.  Chi- 
nese of  seventy  are  still  proud  to  be  going  up 
for  examinations  that  for  fifty  years  they  have 
failed  to  pass.  Even  an  unsuccessful  student  is 
of  more  importance  than  a  successful  soldier. 
This  situation  is  only  now  beginning  to  change 
slowly. 

The  victory  over  the  Russians  was  an  incon- 
clusive victory.  Nearly  900,000  Russians  were 
securely  intrenched,  and  more  were  coming  into 
northern  Manchuria,  when  peace  terms  were 
concluded  at  Portsmouth.  Between  March  31, 
1904,  and  March  31,  1907,  the  national  debt  of 
Japan  increased  from  $280,000,000  to  the  enor- 
mous amount  of  $1,135,000,000;  and  Russia 
declined  even  to  negotiate  unless  any  con- 
sideration of  an  indemnity  was  waived;  and 
Russia  paid  nothing,  ceded  no  territory  of  her 
own,  what  she  relinquished  belonged  to  China, 
and  lost  nothing  but  prestige,  for  which  she 
seemed  to  care  nothing.  This  war  cost  the 
Japanese    $1,000,000,000;     85,000    killed,    and 


430        THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

over  600,000  casualities.  A  drawn  battle  with 
the  Japanese  did  not  seem  to  Russia  then,  and 
from  what  one  hears  in  Russia  to-day,  does  not 
seem  to  them  now,  as  a  matter  of  much  conse- 
quence. Had  it  not  been  for  the  condition  of 
her  domestic  political  affairs,  she  would  not  have 
consented  even  to  appear  at  Portsmouth,  for  she 
knew,  as  the  chancellories  of  all  Europe  knew, 
that  Japan  was  at  her  last  gasp  financially. 

The  alliance  with  Great  Britain  may  have 
been  a  good  stroke  of  diplomacy  for  Great 
Britain  at  the  time;  but  it  was  a  short-sighted 
policy,  and  the  British  are  by  no  means  so  in 
love  with  the  alliance  now,  as  then,  when  they 
considered  it  a  supreme  blow  at  any  Russian 
threatening  of  their  frontiers  in  India.  And  it 
is  well  known  now  that  a  Japanese  alliance  was 
hawked  about  the  continent  before  it  was  ac- 
cepted by  Great  Britain. 

It  is  easv  to  see  that  the  organization  of  an 
army,  that  military  prowess,  are  the  line  of  least 
resistance  for  a  people  with  the  past  history  of 
the  Japanese.  It  was  comparatively  easy  to 
convert  the  fiovhtino*  feudalism  of  earlier  days 
into  the  terms  of  a  modern  navy  and  army. 
What  Wellington  said  of  the  playing-fields  of  the 
great  English  public-schools,  and  the  result  at 
Waterloo,  may  be  said  as  justifiably  of  Bushido, 


JAPAN  431 

and  the  battle  of  the  Yalu  River.  I  have  no 
wish  to  detract  from  the  merit  of  Japanese  mili- 
tary success,  I  merely  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  it  has  its  roots,  and  well-defined  ones,  in  the 
past,  and  is  not  a  military  Cinderella,  as  the 
fairy-story  writers  on  modern  Japan  would  lead 
one  to  believe.  Everybody  agrees  to  praise  the 
obedience,  the  discipline  and  the  courage  of  the 
Japanese  soldier. 

But  now  comes  the  difficult  task,  and  along 
the  lines  of  the  hardest  resistance,  which  is  to 
convert  this  clan  system,  which  despised  com- 
merce and  industry,  which  taught  its  youth  that 
"trade  is  the  only  game  where  the  winner  is 
disgraced,"  into  commercial  and  industrial  effi- 
ciency. Just  as  everybody  agrees  to  praise  the 
Japanese  as  a  soldier,  so  everybody  agrees  to 
question  the  honesty  of  the  Japanese  as  a  trader. 
My  own  reception  in  Japan,  the  constant  hos- 
pitality shown  me  there,  the  intelligent  and  cour- 
teous gentlemen  who  helped  me  and  entertained 
me  there,  make  it  hard  to  understand  the  causes 
of  the  bitter  hostility  to  the  Japanese,  not  on  our 
Western  coast  only,  but  all  through  the  East,  in 
which  I  had  been  travelling  for  many  months. 

It  is  only  when  you  leave  the  high  official,  the 
kindly  and  considerate  host,  the  travelled  and 
cosmopolitan   Japanese,   and  hear  tales  of  the 


432       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

Japanese  as  they  are;  see  them  as  they  are,  at 
the  temples  or  in  the  public  gardens;  in  the 
crowded  narrow  streets  of  Kioto,  for  example; 
at  the  railway  stations;  in  the  railway  carriages, 
hawking,  spitting,  smoking,  scattering  ashes, 
until  the  carriage  floor  looks  like  an  elongated 
cuspidor;  at  the  entrances  and  exits  of  the 
theatres;  at  the  booths  and  side-shows  of  a  fair, 
or  around  a  popular  temple;  crowded  in  a  tram- 
car;  or  when  you  deal  with  subordinates  at  a 
bank,  post-office,  railway  station,  or  telegraph 
office ;  then  you  realize  how  and  why,  practically 
the  people  of  all  nations  who  have  constant 
dealings  with  them,  from  ambassadors  to  travel- 
ling salesmen,  have  grown  to  hate  them  with  an 
untempered  zeal.  Their  fussy  and  self-conscious 
politeness;  their  comical  vanity  and  self-satis- 
faction; their  parochial  assumption  that  all  the 
world  is  wrong,  they  alone  right;  their  lack 
of  consideration  for  others,  particularly  for  their 
women;  their  callow  and  sophisticated  youthful- 
ness;  the  lack  of  personal  dignity,  and  in  its 
place  a  chip-on-the-shoulder  assertiveness;  their 
new  feeling  of  a  scarcely  veiled  contempt  for  the 
white  race,  which,  by  the  way,  is  not  even  veiled 
among  the  Chinese;  all  these  characteristics, 
overlaid  with  a  lacquer  of  hardness  and  a 
national    selfishness   which    no    European    ever 


JAPAN  433 

penetrates — even  poor  Lafcadio  Hearn  learned 
it  to  his  cost  before  he  died — account  to  some 
extent  for  this  extraordinary  shift  of  opinion 
upon  the  part  of  Europeans,  from  condescend- 
ing fondness,  to  virulent  and  loudly  expressed 
contempt. 

But  why,  the  intelligent  reader  will  ask,  have 
travellers  and  writers  for  years  praised  the  gen- 
tleness, the  courtesy,  the  almost  primeval  hon- 
esty, the  patience  of  these  people;  their  painstak- 
ing workmanship  of  swords,  lacquers,  carvings, 
porcelains,  iron-work,  to  turn  upon  them  now 
with  all  manner  of  insult  and  suspicion  for  their 
industrial,  commercial  and  moral  standards. 
It  does  not  seem  to  me  a  difficult  question  to 
answer. 

The  craftsmen  of  Japan,  in  the  old  days, 
worked  for  their  lords  or  their  rich  and  noble 
patrons.  They  were  protected,  supported  and 
praised,  not  paid,  for  their  work;  it  was  a  labor 
of  love.  Buyers  and  sellers,  and  hawkers  and 
traders,  were  a  despised  class.  The  Japanese, 
too,  have  had  practically  no  personal  liberty  as 
we  know  it.  Their  work,  profession,  status  and 
habitat  were  fixed;  and  even  small  crimes  were 
punished  with  death.  Their  amusements  were 
simple,  their  holidays  spent  as  Watteau's  shep- 
herds and  shepherdesses  spent  theirs,  and  they 


434       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

were  to  a  man  under  the  thumb  of  clan  rulers, 
and  without  opportunity  for  moral  vagaries,  or 
personal  choice,  in  the  matter  of  habits  and 
customs.  Everybody  worked  for  some  house- 
hold, and  every  household  worked  for  some 
clan.  A  man  was  obliged  by  law,  in  feudal 
times,  to  earn  his  living,  to  marry,  to  bring  up 
his  family  and  to  die,  in  the  place  where  he  was 
born ;  and  even  to-day  it  is  expected,  and  is  gen- 
erally the  custom,  though  such  restrictions  are 
rapidly  passing.  The  loosening  of  family  bonds, 
the  greater  liberty  of  the  individual,  mean  little 
to  us,  perhaps,  as  we  read  of  it;  but  in  Japan  it 
means  the  lessening  of  the  restraining  power  of 
religion  itself.  A  nation  of  ancestor-worshippers 
depend  upon  the  integrity  of  the  family  life  for 
all  their  moral  as  well  as  religious  sanctions; 
and  the  growth  of  individualism  in  Japan  was 
sure  to  be  followed  by  a  certain  moral  laxity. 
We  are  seeing  that  to-day.  To  do  away  with 
the  family  cult  of  each  family's  ancestors  is  to  do 
away  with  religion,  is  to  do  away  with  the  great 
spiritual  restraining  and  warning  hand,  which 
had  kept  moral  irregularities  in  abeyance.  It 
was  the  civilization  of  a  jelly-mould.  Of  a 
sudden  the  mould  is  broken.  Each  must  take 
care  of  himself,  each  must  make  a  living  for 
himself,  each  must  fend  and  fight  for  himself, 


JAPAN  435 

each  must  learn  to  make  and  to  spend  money. 
It  is  a  poor  country,  the  natural  wealth  of  the 
country  is  small,  and  it  is  overcrowded;  com- 
petition is  severe,  and  the  old  rule  of  unques- 
tioning loyalty  is  everywhere  lessening;  and  the 
new  laws  of  economic  competition,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  come  into  existence,  and  there  fol- 
lows chaos. 

On  top  of  this  come  war,  prestige,  praise,  alli- 
ance with  the  mightiest,  and  overwhelming  na- 
tional debts;  and  there  follow  self-satisfaction, 
vanity  and  self -consciousness.  Japan  suffers 
from  being  the  novus  homo  among  the  nations. 
She  has  not  our  morals,  our  manners,  our  dress, 
our  religion,  our  familiarity  with  wealth  and  lux- 
ury, our  tastes  in  art,  literature  or  music,  none 
of  our  European  traditions  in  short,  or  our  fa- 
miliarity with  the  written  or  spoken  languages 
of  ancient  and  modern  culture  and  civilization. 
This  nation,  which  in  its  own  clothes,  in  its  own 
home,  and  in  familiar  surroundings,  and  living 
by  its  own  moral  code,  was  dubbed  graceful, 
polite,  gentle  and  unassuming,  is  now,  because 
judged  by  an  entirely  different  standard,  awk- 
ward, unmoral,  self-conscious,  bumptious  and 
dishonest. 

One  sometimes  sees  an  individual  of  one  na- 
tion  who   wishes  to   appear  to  be  of  another. 


436       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

There  was  a  time  when  the  Englishman  was 
proud  to  be  deemed  "Italianated,"  or  to  be 
called  the  "Mirror  of  Tuscany";  and  there  are 
Englishmen  to-day  who  vaunt  the  civilization 
of  France  as  higher  than  their  own.  There  are, 
alas,  Americans  who  emigrate,  socially  and  na- 
tionally, to  London  or  to  Paris,  and  who  ape 
the  accent,  the  manner  and  what  they  deem  by 
an  entirely  mistaken  view  to  be  the  sedulous 
anxiety  of  the  Englishman  to  avoid  intercourse 
with  whomsoever  is  great-grandfatherless.  Try- 
ing to  be  superficially  what  essentially  one  is 
not,  is  an  awkward  business,  and  these  her- 
maphrodite patriots  are  ridiculous  abroad  and 
a  mortification  at  home.  In  the  case  of  the 
Japanese,  the  whole  nation  is  trying  to  appear 
to  be  what  it  is  not;  they  are  trying  to  do  things 
that  are  not  natural  to  them;  trying  to  assume 
an  equality  with  others  along  lines  that  are 
foreign  to  them;  and  although  these  efforts  arc 
prodigious,  and  here  and  there  successful,  the 
general  result  cannot  help  being  slightly  ridic- 
ulous. There  was  no  exaggeration  in  the  old 
praise,  there  is  no  exaggeration  in  the  new 
blame. 

To  insist  upon  building  the  Antung-Mukden 
railway  into  a  broad-gauge  road,  amply  serv- 
iceable for  troops  and  freight,  if  the  words  of  a 


JAPAN  437 

treaty  mean  anything,  was  taking  a  mean  advan- 
tage of  the  Chinese.  The  concession  for  the 
construction  of  the  Chinchow-Aigun  railway, 
America  making  the  loan  to  China,  and  an 
English  firm  contracting  to  build  the  road,  was 
held  up  on  a  protest  from  Japan.  Why  China, 
an  unconquered  and  independent  nation,  should 
not  be  allowed  to  build  a  railway,  controlled 
and  owned  by  the  state,  and  far  removed  from 
any  Japanese  interest,  it  is  hard  to  understand. 
England  declines  to  assist  the  project  in  any 
way.  England  is  for  the  moment  interna- 
tionally supine.  She  is  fully  occupied  with  the 
tearing  at  her  domestic  vitals  of  a  demagogue- 
fed,  and  demagogue-bred,  class  war,  which  a 
knot  of  recalcitrants,  who  have  paid  for  admis- 
sion with  money  they  have  begged  in  a  foreign 
country,  watch,  with  their  thumbs  turned  down 
to  every  appeal  for  fair-play.  England's  attitude 
is  apparently  that  China  is  to  have  no  rights  as 
over  against  her  ally  Japan's  wishes.  At  Hong- 
chow,  when  I  was  in  China,  the  Japanese  were 
trading  in  the  interior  in  spite  of  specific  treaties 
forbidding  it,  and  when  ordered  away  by  the 
Chinese  governor,  were  leaving  with  impudent 
reluctance. 

Three    treaties    define    Japan's    position    in 
Manchuria:    I.  the    Anglo- Japanese    treaty   of 


438       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

August,  1905;  II.  the  Portsmouth  treaty  of 
September,  1905;  III.  the  China- Japan  treaty 
of  December,  1905.  Japan  subscribes  in  all  of 
these  treaties  to  the  policy  of  the  open  door  in 
Manchuria,  but  is  doing  her  best  to  make  all 
things  easy  for  Japanese  enterprise  and  com- 
merce, and  the  reverse  for  every  other  nation. 

Though  the  Chinese  and  Japanese  cannot 
understand  each  other's  speech,  they  can  read 
each  other's  writing  or  ideographs.  This  helps 
the  Japanese  in  their  honest  trade  with  the  Chi- 
nese very  materially,  because  labels,  addresses, 
firm  marks,  and  brands  are  made  easily  plain; 
but  it  helps  also  in  the  forgery  of  patent  marks, 
labels,  and  brands,  and  this  has  become  an  occa- 
sional feature  of  Japanese  commercial  methods. 

Half  an  hour's  walk  in  Tokio,  writes  the  Brit- 
ish ambassador,  will  discover  ten  to  twenty  imita- 
tions of  British  trade-marks.  One  may  buy  all 
over  China  to-day  the  English  Rodgers's  razors, 
made  in  Japan.  More  than  one  Chinese  news- 
sheet  is  edited  and  controlled  by  Japanese; 
and  these  are  the  sheets  which  are  loudest  in 
their  demands  for  the  driving  out  of  China  of 
the  foreigner.  At  the  final  meeting  of  the  Nip- 
pon Syndicate,  Limited,  in  London,  the  chair- 
man said  that  the  reason  for  the  winding  up  of 
the  company's  affairs  was  due,  he  regretted  to 


JAPAN  439 

say,  "to  the  wide-spread  unreliability  of  the 
Japanese  nation  in  commerce,  no  less  than  to 
the  reluctance  of  our  allies  to  admit  British 
enterprise  to  any  share  of  the  resources  of  the 
Far  East.  The  selfish  policy  of  the  Japanese 
had  reduced  the  doctrine  of  the  open  door  to 
nothing  more  or  less  than  a  fiction."  The 
Japanese  consul  himself,  in  Tientsin,  reported 
to  his  government  that  "the  Chinese  regard 
Japanese  goods  with  serious  distrust  as  being 
cheaply  and  badly  packed  and  not  up  to  sample." 
While  in  India  I  heard  of  a  large  amount  of 
money  involved  in  the  suit  of  an  Indian  exporter 
from  Japan,  who  claimed  that  he  had  been 
shamefully  deceived  by  the  difference  between 
samples  and  the  cotton  goods  received.  One  of 
our  American  school-books  was  stolen  bodily 
and  reprinted  in  Japan.  The  American  pub- 
lishers, through  our  State  Department,  remon- 
strated. The  Japanese  reply  was  that  the  book 
was  not  the  same,  because  they  had  corrected 
certain  verbal  errors  in  the  original! 

The  new  Japanese  tariff  comes  into  force  on 
July  1,  1911.  The  average  of  new  duties  on 
British  goods  is  estimated  at  an  advance  of 
two-thirds  upon  existing  rates.  On  goods  from 
other  countries  the  increase  in  the  average  of 
the  duties  is  about  fifty  per  cent.     But,  says 


440       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Count  Komura,  the  Foreign  Secretary  of  Japan, 
in  an  official  statement  of  Japanese  policy: 
"Great  Britain  has  what  is  called  a  free-trade 
policy;  there  is  no  room  for  a  convention  with 
that  country."  This  is  frank  cynicism  enough, 
one  would  think,  to  penetrate  the  British  com- 
mercial understanding.  If  this  is  not  enough, 
the  new  tariff  increases  the  duties  on  printed 
goods  from  eight  pence  to  twenty- two  pence; 
on  white  shirtings  the  duty  is  nearly  quadru- 
pled, and  on  cotton  Italians  the  increase  is  even 
greater. 

In  spite  of  the  alliance,  the  British  community 
in  Japan  does  not  receive  the  "most-favored- 
nation"  treatment,  but  its  members  are  re- 
garded as  undesirable  aliens,  as  are  the  repre- 
sentatives of  other  nations;  and  now  in  addition 
the  tariff  wall  against  British  goods  has  been 
raised  to  an  almost  unclimbable  height. 

The  total  of  Japanese  imports  and  exports  in 
1868  amounted  to  $13,123,272;  in  1904  to 
$303,318,980;  and  in  1908  to  $407,2.51,500.  It 
may  be  that  the  Japanese  now  believe  that  they 
can  afford  to  look  upon  their  alliance  with 
Great  Britain  as  a  favor  bestowed  rather  than 
as  a  favor  received.  They  have  got  out  of  it  the 
peace  and  protection  they  needed  in  a  time  of 
great  strain;   their  army  and  navy  they  assume, 


JAPAN  441 

some  of  their  high  officials  even  claim  as  much, 
are  more  needed  by  Great  Britain  than  is  Great 
Britain's  protection  by  Japan,  and  therefore 
they  can  now  deal  with  Great  Britain  on  even 
terms.  This  may  or  may  not  be  good  diplo- 
macy, wise  commercial  methods.  With  that  I 
have  nothing  to  do.  I  cite  it  as  a  national  ex- 
ample of  the  same  spirit  which  pervades  their 
dealings  as  individuals.  Whatever  else  it  may 
be,  it  is  not  "playing  the  game." 

Even  their  hospitality  is  suspicious  beneath 
its  outward  graciousness.  Very  few  Americans 
know,  when  the  American  fleet  was  welcomed 
with  loud  acclaims  of  friendliness  at  Yokohama, 
that  all  the  rest  of  the  Japanese  ships  and  men 
were  mobilized  near  Nagasaki  and  kept  there, 
even  depriving  men  of  leave,  till  the  American 
fleet  sailed  away.  This  is  of  the  type  of  frank 
friendliness  which  leads  Japanese  officers  to 
run  between  the  shafts  of  a  jinrickishaw  in  order 
to  listen  to  the  conversation  of  the  foreign 
officers  they  draw.  Somehow  these  strike  us  as 
the  degrading  precautions  of  a  morally  vulgar 
and  low  type  of  civilization.  These  things  are 
not  easy  for  us  to  understand,  or  to  dismiss  with 
a  smile,  except  of  contempt. 

I  could  fill  this  chapter,  and  many  chapters, 
with  example  after  example  of  the  untrustwor- 


442       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

thiness  of  the  Japanese  merchants  and  indus- 
trials. I  have  cited  instances  merely  to  show 
the  reader  that  this  accusation  is  not  gossip. 
But  I  have  little  taste  for  accusations,  and  no 
enmity  against  the  Japanese,  for  I  cannot  pict- 
ure a  kindlier  hospitality  than  I  received.  This 
is  all  by  way  of  explanation,  as  is  much  that 
is  to  follow,  and  by  no  means  a  tirade;  and 
also  because  it  is  quite  fair,  and  high  time,  that 
we  dropped  the  songs  of  the  nursery  and  dis- 
cussed Japan  by  the  grown-up  standards,  by 
which  she  now  claims  the  right  to  be  judged. 

We  have  come  to  believe  in  the  West,  that  no 
progress  along  moral  lines  can  be  attained  with- 
out putting  women  on  the  same  level  of  moral 
and  mental  opportunity  with  men.  Without 
respect  for  womanhood  we  believe  that  men  can- 
not respect  themselves,  and  that  the  degradation 
of  women  means  the  degradation  of  men.  The 
Japanese  neither  believe  this  nor  act  upon  it. 
During  the  seven  years,  1890-1897,  there  were 
2,450,838  marriages  in  Japan,  821,121  divorces, 
and  523,992  illegitimate  births.  Prostitution  in 
Japan  is  regulated,  controlled  and  taxed  by  the 
state.  The  last  census  gives  the  number  of 
females  in  Japan  as  23,131,207;  of  this  number, 
7,587,979  are  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and 
thirty-five,  or  roughly  the  age  when  the  Eastern 


JAPAN  443 

woman  is  physically  attractive.  One  writer 
claims  that  there  are  "500,000  public  prosti- 
tutes, and  at  least  1,000,000  daruma  and  meshi- 
mori,1  etc.,  etc.;  the  total  of  women  practising 
prostitution  is  probably  1,400,000,  and  if  to  this 
again  about  500,000  Geisha  be  added,  the  com- 
plete grand  total  cannot  be  short  of  nearly 
2,000,000."  It  seems  impossible  that  this  can 
be  true,  though  I  have  figures  from  an  official 
in  the  Finance  Department,  who  procured  them 
from  the  Home  Department,  which  confirm  this 
estimate.  But  even  if  it  were  cut  in  half,  and 
this  is  an  absurd  underestimate,  it  shows  that  of 
all  the  women  in  Japan  between  the  ages  of  fif- 
teen and  thirty-five,  one  out  of  every  seven  and  a 
half  is  thus  employed.  It  is  true,  at  all  events, 
and  every  traveller  with  eyes  to  see  may  investi- 
gate for  himself,  that  the  whole  eastern  coast 
from  Zanzibar  to  Kamtschatka  is  fringed  with 
Japanese  prostitutes.  In  Bombay,  Calcutta, 
Hongkong,  Singapore,  Shanghai,  and  so  on  all 
around  the  coast,  this  Japanese  export  is  promi- 
nent. The  Japanese  authorities  recognize  this 
and  are  trying  to  stop  this  emigration  of  young 
women,  which  is  a  standing  disgrace  to  them, 
along  15,000  miles  of  sea-coast. 

1  Japanese  words  used  in  the  provinces  and  meaning  procuresses, 
or  low-class  Cone iliatr ices. 


444       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

It  is  a  not  uncommon  thing  for  a  Japanese 
girl  to  sell  herself  at  home  or  abroad,  to  gain 
the  money  with  which  to  marry  and  settle 
down,  the  future  husband  agreeing  to  this  man- 
ner of  gaining  the  marriage  portion.  As  I 
have  noted,  the  Emperor  sets  the  example  by 
giving  his  people  an  heir  to  the  throne  born  of 
a  concubine;  and  no  Japanese,  of  whatever  posi- 
tion in  society,  would  hesitate  to  take  one,  or 
as  many  as  were  necessary  of  these  women,  into 
his  household  to  procure  a  son  to  continue  the 
ancestor-worship.  A  Japanese  nobleman,  well 
known  as  a  diplomat  in  Europe  and  in  this 
country,  in  discussing  this  question  with  me, 
remarked:  "What  a  fine  thing  if  you  had  in 
your  country  a  descendant  of  George  Washing- 
ton!" He  intimated,  too,  that  in  his  country 
the  whole  question  was  treated  as  a  matter  of 
practical  hygiene,  just  as  we  provide  a  pure- 
food  law,  while  in  England  and  in  America  we 
balked  at  dealing  with  the  matter  frankly  and 
wisely,  and  treated  it  like  hypocrites.  He  was 
right  up  to  a  certain  point,  for  there  are  no  streets 
paraded  by  soliciting  women  in  Tokio  as  are 
Piccadilly,  London;  certain  streets  in  New  York; 
the  Boulevards,  and  the  shambles  of  Mont- 
martre,  in  Paris.  In  Japan  the  laws  are  strin- 
gent upon  this  subject,  and  the  punishment  for 


JAPAN  445 

illegal  use  of  houses  is  a  heavy  fine  and  impris- 
onment. The  women  are  segregated  in  certain 
districts,  and  are  regularly  taxed  and  visited. 

The  three  laws  for  Japanese  women  are  obedi- 
ence to  father  and  mother  as  a  child ;  obedience 
to  husband  as  a  wife;  finally  obedience  to  her 
children  as  an  old  woman.  The  women  are 
gentle,  fertile,  and  obedient;  and  it  is  disconcert- 
ing to  the  logical  mind  to  find  that  their  most 
fervent  admirers  are  to  be  found  among  our 
American  women,  who  are  considered  by  all  the 
world  to  be  sophisticated  and  independent,  and 
by  that  unanswerable  critic,  the  Census,  to  be 
rapidly  losing  the  position  they  ought  to  hold  in 
the  birth-rate  column. 

If  the  American  woman  knew  that  every  inn, 
every  tea-house  and  every  hotel,  and  many  of 
the  temples  in  Japan  offered  easy  virtue  to  every 
traveller  and  pilgrim  so  disposed;  and  that  the 
sale  of  herself  by  the  woman,  to  relieve  family 
necessities,  is  looked  upon  as  a  worthy  self- 
sacrifice  in  thousands  of  Japanese  households; 
if  she  could  see  the  whole  Japanese  attitude 
toward  this  question,  both  at  home  and  abroad, 
she  would  consider  the  admission  of  the  Japan- 
ese in  any  numbers  into  this  country,  to  be  edu- 
cated side  by  side  with  our  children,  in  the  pub- 
lic schools,  as  an  intolerable  suggestion.     And 


446       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

she  would  consider  that  to  permit  freedom  of  so- 
cial intercourse  between  Japanese  men  and  the 
young  women  of  America  an  insulting  sugges- 
tion. Even  when  Japanese  gentlemen  entertain, 
professional  women  are  called  in  for  the  occa- 
sion. It  will  be  time  to  talk  of  offering  the 
freedom  of  our  guarded  and  cherished  homes  to 
the  Japanese,  when  the  Japanese  have  our  ideals 
of  what  such  a  home  ought  to  be. 

Our  Western  coast  is  right,  and  not  till  victory 
over  our  forces  on  sea  and  land  brings  them,  will 
the  Japanese  be  permitted  to  colonize  in  any 
part  of  America,  until  her  civilization  is  purged 
and  changed  in  this  respect.  Far  be  it  from  me 
to  sit  in  judgment  over  the  nations  of  the  earth, 
to  claim  that  we  are  right  and  others  wrong; 
and  I  trust  that  the  reader  will  realize  that  I 
have  been  stating  facts,  noting  differences,  and 
not  offering  ponderous  protocols,  as  though  the 
possession  of  a  pen  produced  omniscience.  I 
should  be  sorry  to  be  included  in  that  category 
of  travellers,  and  writers  about  other  countries, 
who  look  upon  every  difference,  every  incon- 
venience, every  displeasing  incident  as  a  griev- 
ance. I  look  upon  them  not  as  grievances,  but 
as  experiences,  and  I  try  to  deal  with  them  as 
such,  for  my  own  benefit,  and  that  of  my 
countrvmen. 


JAPAN  447 

It  was  only  recently  and  after  a  valiant  fight, 
led  by  the  members  of  the  European  Salvation 
Army  in  Japan,  and  at  the  risk  of  personal  vio- 
lence to  themselves,  that  the  shameful  slavery  to 
which  the  inmates  of  the  Yoshiwara,  or  Prosti- 
tutes' Quarter,  were  subjected,  was  mitigated; 
and  women  who  wished  to  escape  were  given  the 
opportunity  to  do  so.  Before  the  Japanese 
woman  is  allowed  to  stand  securely  upon  the 
rhetorical  pedestal  built  for  her  by  Lafcadio 
Hearn,  and  accepted  as  appropriate  to  her  moral 
and  social  status  by  indifferent  and  superficial 
travellers,  she  must  be  judged  by  other  standards, 
and  with  evidence  furnished  by  less  frankly 
partial  witnesses. 

The  total  net  debt  of  the  United  States,  that 
is,  what  remains  after  deducting  the  cash  in  the 
Treasury,  was,  on  June  30,  1908,  $938,132,409. 
About  $155,000,000  was  paying  at  the  rate  of 
four  per  cent,  the  balance  two  or  three  per  cent. 
The  estimated  value  of  property  in  the  United 
States  in  1904  was  estimated  at  $107,104,- 
192,410. 

The  debt  of  Japan,  one  of  the  poorest  coun- 
tries in  the  world,  with  more  than  one-half  of  its 
cultivated  area  given  over  to  the  raising  of  rice, 
was,  on  March  31,  1908,  $1,138,173,226,  and 
the  internal  loans  pay  from  five   to  eight  per 


448        THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

cent,  and  the  foreign  loans  from  four  to  six  per 
cent.1 

A  Japanese  writer,  Adachi  Kinnosuke  by 
name,  writes:  "People  in  Japan  with  $50,000 
a  year  or  more  are  asked  to  hand  over  to  the 
government  $34,000  of  it.  Wonderful,  is  it  not  ? 
More  wonderful  still,  they  say  nothing  about  it. 
Of  course  it  is  graded  down  so  that  a  man  with 
$500  yearly  income  pays  about  seventeen  per 
cent.  On  an  average  the  people  of  Japan  pay 
about  thirty  per  cent  of  their  net  income  in  taxa- 
tion in  one  form  or  another  —  a  taxation  which 
would  create  a  revolution  in  Europe  or  America 
in  twenty-four  hours."  This  Japanese  writer, 
who  is  apparently  proud  of  this  situation  in  his 
own  country,  might  have  gone  further  and  said, 
not  only  that  there  would  be  a  revolution  in 
Europe  and  America,  but  also  that  our  present 
freedom,  our  religious  and  political  liberty,  have 

'THE    EXPENDITURES    OF    JAPAN    IX    YEX 

1901 266,856,824 

1905 420,741.7:55 

1910 534,303,861 

THE    TAXES    OF    JAPAN    IN    YEN 

1901 135,652,181 

1905 264,624.842 

1910 320,225,718 

THE    NATIONAL    DEBT    OF    JAPAN    IN    YEX 

1901 496,765,010 

1905 2,082,582,822 

1910 2.331,090,448 


JAPAN  449 

been  won  by  revolutions  in  the  past,  to  enable 
us  to  escape  from  just  such  tyrannical  taxation. 
The  oligarchical  clan  government  of  Japan  is 
bleeding  people  to  death  to  provide  an  army 
and  navy,  and  for  the  conduct  of  war.  A  little 
historical  knowledge  would  have  shown  this 
gentleman  that  we  do  not  envy  him,  and  that 
Magna  Charta,  Charles  the  First,  the  French 
Revolutions,  and  the  American  Revolution  are 
incidents  in  the  combined  history  of  Europe  and 
America  to  prove  it. 

In  his  treatment  of  the  case  the  slight  premise 
is  assumed  that  we  should  all  be  better  off  if  we 
were  Japanese!  Hearn's  brief  for  the  Japanese 
women  omits  the  same  corner-stone  in  the  build- 
ing of  his  monument.  The  Japanese  have 
reached  a  phase  of  megalomania,  where  they 
fancy  that  the  rest  of  the  world  looks  upon  them 
with  awe  and  envy.  No  one  who  has  not  talked 
day  after  day  with  the  Japanese  appreciates  this. 
Many  of  them,  as  is  the  case  with  Mr.  Adachi 
Kinnosuke,  hold  up  their  hands  and  say: 
"Wonderful,  is  it  not?"  It  is  barely  possible 
that  we  do  not  think  it  wonderful  at  all,  that 
on  the  contrary  we  think  it  deplorable.  It  is 
barely  possible  that  we  prefer  American  to 
Japanese  standards;  American  to  Japanese 
morality ;  American  to  Japanese  women ;  Amer- 


450        THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

ican  to  Japanese  national  debt  and  taxation; 
American  to  Japanese  civilization;  and  Ameri- 
can to  Japanese  estimation  in  the  eyes  of  the 
world.  As  an  American  I  should  be  mortified  to 
think  that  my  country,  my  country's  institutions, 
my  countrymen  or  my  countrywomen,  could  be 
confounded  for  a  moment  with  the  Japanese. 

We  escaped  from  the  slavery  of  feudalism 
many  years  ago.  Japan  is  as  much  in  the  grip 
of  the  feudal  baron  and  feudal  methods  to-day 
as  she  was  in  the  days  of  the  Shogunate.  Their 
Emperor  is  not  a  constitutional  ruler,  but  a  god, 
a  puppet-king,  as  a  high  Japanese  official  has 
called  him;  their  House  of  Representatives  has 
little  more  final  voice  in  policy  and  legislation 
than  have  the  Boy  Scouts  upon  American  policy 
and  legislation;  the  Japanese  are  not  taxed, 
they  are  robbed,  as  were  our  ancestors  when 
they  were  serfs  and  villeins.  If  we  retrograded 
to  such  taxation  as  obtains  in  Japan,  it  would 
be  because  it  could  not  be  helped,  as  is  the  case 
in  Japan  to-day.  We  are  not  in  the  stage  of 
civilization  where  there  is  nothing  to  be  bought 
with  money  but  rice,  sake,  Geisha  girls,  and  the 
favor  of  Shinto  or  Buddhist  temple-servers;  if 
we  were,  we  might  not  crave  wealth,  might  in- 
deed rejoice  to  be  soldiers,  as  a  relief  from  pov- 
erty and  monotony. 


JAPAN  451 

Though  life  in  Japan  is  not  monotonous  to 
the  Japanese,  for  they  are  distinctly  a  bright, 
cheerful  and  happy  people,  it  would  be  burden- 
somely  monotonous  to  us.  Their  women  are 
docile  housewives,  who  spend  next  to  nothing 
upon  themselves,  and  know  nothing  of  liberty  or 
luxury.  They  take  no  part  in  the  social  en- 
joyments and  hospitalities  of  their  husbands, 
who  when  they  can  afford  it,  call  in  the  aid  of  a 
restaurant,  and  Geisha  girls,  when  they  entertain. 
Neither  men  nor  women  have  the  countless  in- 
terests of  literature,  art,  theatres,  sports,  games, 
travel,  charity,  religious  societies,  clubs,  which 
make  the  poorest  of  us  love  our  independence. 

It  is  not  worth  gambling,  with  your  soul  as 
stake,  to  win  the  whole  world  of  Japan,  because 
to  the  Westerner,  be  he  right  or  wrong  in  his 
appreciation,  the  whole  world  of  Japan  is  not 
worth  having,  at  the  price  of  their  present  sla- 
very. We  must  wait  till  luxury  comes  and 
wealth;  the  cry  of  their  women  for  liberty  and 
something  approaching  equality  of  opportunity; 
strikes  and  the  organization  of  labor;  the  escape 
of  the  members  of  the  Imperial  Diet  from  the 
sway  of  a  puppet-king  endowed  with  ghostly 
powers;  the  awakening  of  the  nation  to  the 
pleasures  and  opportunities  of  life  as  we  know 
them;    we  must  wait  till  then. 


452       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

They  have  not  been  tested  as  yet  with  the  real 
temptations  of  power ;  with  the  strain  and  stress 
of  representative  government;  with  the  poisonous 
vapors  of  prosperity;  with  the  demands  and  ex- 
pectations of  the  superficially  educated ;  with  the 
unpatriotic  lawlessness  of  millions  of  aliens ;  with 
masses  of  people  under  no  religious  restraint. 
No  devil  has  taken  them  up  into  the  high  moun- 
tain of  civilization,  and  shown  them  the  king- 
doms of  the  world  and  tempted  them ;  and  until 
that  time  comes,  the  Japanese  must  be  con- 
sidered as  still  in  the  making,  and  outside  of 
any  but  a  hypothetical  judgment. 

They  took  their  religion,  their  Confucian  code 
of  ethics,  their  art,  their  alphabet  even,  all  that 
they  have,  indeed,  from  India,  China,  and  Korea. 
They  adopted  them,  but  they  have  not  improved 
them.  They  have  no  porcelain,  no  painting,  no 
carving,  no  literature,  no  ethical  code,  no  religion 
which  are  improvements  upon  what  they  imi- 
tated. Their  past  is  a  copy  of  the  East,  their 
present  is  a  copy  of  the  West.  They  have  imi- 
tated our  mills,  machines,  arms  and  instruments, 
but  no  Japanese  even  would  claim  that  they  have 
invented  anything  of  their  own,  or  improved  upon 
the  Western  models.  It  is  evident  that  a  man 
who  can  only  imitate  must  always  remain  behind. 

There  is  one  department  of  modern  life  where 


JAPAN  453 

the  mere  imitator  must  necessarily  find  great 
difficulties,  and  that  is  in  the  department  of 
government,  especially  the  governing  of  other 
races  far  away  from  one's  own  country.  The 
mere  machinery  of  government  may  suffice  at 
home,  where  all  men  by  centuries  of  conformity 
have  adjusted  themselves,  but  no  machinery  is 
enough  to  make  the  governing  of  alien  races  easy. 
The  machinery  then  becomes  subordinate  to 
those  who  use  it,  adapt  it,  fit  it  to  daily  exigen- 
cies, and  adjust  it  nicely  to  other  habits,  customs, 
and  prejudices.  Whatever  else  we  may  have 
added  to  the  fund  of  the  stored-up  experience 
of  civilization,  our  race  may  claim  an  easy  pre- 
eminence in  this  domain.  Here,  at  any  rate, 
we  have  earned  the  right  to  look  on  with  a 
critical  eye,  at  the  endeavors  of  other  governors, 
whether  they  be  French  or  Japanese. 

We  may  claim,  too,  that  there  is  no  higher  test 
of  a  man's  all-round  ability,  and  no  fairer  test  of 
a  nation's  claim  to  greatness,  than  the  individ- 
ual's or  the  nation's  prowess  in  this  field  of  effort. 
Whether  he  be  a  country  parson,  the  manager  of 
a  great  railroad,  or  the  governor  of  a  wide  prov- 
ince, inhabited  by  millions  of  an  alien  race,  he 
ranks  among  the  men  of  unusual  powers  in  his 
degree  who  succeeds  in  adjusting  differences; 
harmonizing  conflicting  aims ;  gaining  confidence 


454       THE    WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

by  his  cheerful  but  unbending  justice;  solving 
problems  by  superior  wisdom;  gaining  the  al- 
legiance of  warring  factions,  and  leading  all  alike 
along  the  path  he  has  marked  out  for  himself 
and  them;  while  the  greatest  rulers,  men  like 
Clive  and  Cromwell  and  Lincoln,  rank  with  the 
fewr  shining  ones  in  war,  art  and  literature,  as 
the  prize  products  of  humanity. 

Japan  has  not  gained  the  respect,  the  con- 
fidence, or  the  quiet  control  of  Formosa,  Korea, 
or  lower  Manchuria.  In  all  the  months  I  was 
in  India  I  never  saw  a  white  man  ill-use  a  brown 
one;  I  did  not  visit  Formosa,  but  the  Japanese 
are  burning  villages  and  shooting  down  the  na- 
tives there  as  I  write.  I  did  travel  through  the 
whole  length  of  Korea,  crossed  the  Yalu  River, 
and  travelled  through  the  whole  length  of  the 
Japanese  sphere  of  influence  in  Manchuria,  and 
never  a  day  passed  that  I  did  not  see  rough  and 
often  violent  treatment  of  Koreans  and  Manchus 
by  Japanese  soldiers,  police,  and  the  lower  class 
of  labor  employed  there.  It  is  fair  to  say  that 
the  late  Prince  Ito,  and  the  present  Consul- 
General  of  Korea,  and  all  the  many  Japanese 
officials  whom  I  met,  were  heartily  in  accord, 
and  sincerely  in  earnest,  in  their  endeavors  to 
do  away  with  these  rough  and  bullying  methods, 
but  they  have  not  succeeded  in  preventing  them. 


JAPAN  455 

The  Japanese  of  all  classes,  high  and  low,  are 
painfully  sensitive  to  ridicule.  In  their  own 
country,  in  the  past,  their  military  traditions, 
the  closely  drawn  limitations  between  classes, 
the  prompt  vengeance  of  slight  or  insult,  made 
the  rules  of  politeness  to  one  another  as  rigid, 
and  their  ceremonious  treatment  of  one  another 
as  elaborate,  as  religious  rubrics. 

Both  the  Koreans  and  the  Chinese  look  upon 
the  Japanese  as  inferior.  The  Koreans  call 
them  "island  savages,"  "foreign  knaves,"  and 
their  country  "  Contemptible  Dwarf  Land,"  and 
the  Chinese  call  them  "monkeys,"  and  both 
consider  them  as  even  more  contemptible  than 
Europeans. 

I  grant  that  it  has  a  tendency  to  make  a  man 
self-conscious,  and  awkward,  and  inclined  to 
self-assertion,  when  he  finds  himself  in  a  com- 
pany that  is  latently  unfriendly,  even  if  he  be  a 
superior  person  of  long  training  in  self-control. 

I  have  seen  both  Manchus  and  Koreans  make 
fun  of  the  little  Japanese  soldiers  and  policemen, 
and  it  is  perhaps  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  they 
retaliate  with  physical  force.  They  do  not  like 
chaff,  and  do  not  know  how  to  take  it;  and  they 
are  very  new,  one  may  even  say,  very  raw,  at 
the  business  of  exercising  authority.  The  white 
man,  indeed  the  gentleman  everywhere,  assumes 


456       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

his  authority,  he  does  not  assert  it.  But  one 
must  be  very  sure  of  oneself  to  do  this  success- 
fully, and  the  Japanese  are  not  sure  of  them- 
selves by  any  means.  Almost  any  Japanese  is 
delighted  to  be  mistaken  for  a  European,  puts 
himself  indeed  to  great  pains  to  imitate  his 
institutions,  his  clothes,  his  manners,  his  hab- 
its, and  to  learn  his  language,  and  has  none  of 
the  Chinese  indifference  to,  and  contempt  for, 
Western  standards  of  civilization. 

No  man  ever  does  anything  well  if  he  is  for- 
ever looking  out  of  the  cornel  of  his  eye  to  see 
if  he  is  copying  his  model  successfully.  The 
Japanese  give  you  the  impression  of  watching 
to  see  if  you  think  they  have  done  things  the 
way  they  ought  to  be  done,  whether  it  is  eating 
their  dinner,  drinking  their  wine,  tying  their  cra- 
vats, choosing  their  hats  and  coats,  or  governing 
their  colonies.  This  uneasiness  about  their  own 
manners  and  methods,  about  their  right  to  the 
pre-eminence  that  they  have  claimed,  cannot  be 
concealed  from  those  they  are  attempting  to  rule; 
and  as  I  have  said  elsewhere,  the  nervous  rider 
makes  the  excitable  horse. 

This  governing  of  aliens  demands  a  superior 
all-round  man,  and  one  who  possesses  in  par- 
ticular great  nervous  staying  power.  The  con- 
stant  pin-pricks,    the    malicious    misinterpreta- 


JAPAN  457 

tions,  the  steady  opposition,  the  daily  and 
studied  efforts  at  circumvention,  are  irritating 
and  nerve-racking.  Even  the  stolid  English- 
man in  India  finds  it  health-destroying.  It  has 
had  the  effect  upon  some  of  the  stout  little 
Japanese  of  breaking  them  down,  making  ner- 
vous wrecks  of  them.  I  know  of  more  than  one 
Japanese  official  recalled  already  from  these 
new  colonies,  completely  broken  down  nervously. 
Men  who  could  stand  the  gruelling  hardships  of 
a  winter  campaign  in  Manchuria,  and  lose  no 
weight  even,  waste  away  under  the  burdens  of 
the  complicated  business  of  governing  peaceably. 
Fighting  is  merely  an  exciting  form  of  exercise, 
but  governing  is  the  very  rarest  accomplishment 
of  the  most  highly  trained  men,  of  the  most 
advanced  civilizations. 

The  disease  known  to  us  as  beri-beri,  and 
called  by  the  Japanese  Kahe,  which  is  a  malady 
of  the  nerves,  resulting  in  paralysis  and  numb- 
ness, is  common  in  Japan.  It  played  such 
havoc  in  both  army  and  navy  that  its  causes 
have  been  seriously  investigated.  In  the  navy, 
after  certain  experiments,  the  surgeon-general 
prescribed  a  change  of  diet,  giving  the  men 
more  meat,  bread,  vegetables,  and  less  rice.  It 
may  be  of  interest  to  our  Uptonian  school  of  re- 
formers and  their  allies,  the  social  and  political 


458        THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Saprophagans,  to  learn  that  Chicago  canned 
meat  was  added  to  the  daily  rations  of  the  Jap- 
anese navy  and  army,  and  helped  to  stamp  out 
this  dread  disease. 

The  Japanese  copy  quickly,  but  they  learn, 
which  is  quite  another  thing,  slowly.  Accord- 
ing to  the  present  school  system,  a  boy  enters  the 
primary  school  at  the  age  of  six,  and  stays  six 
years;  at  the  age  of  twelve  he  goes  to  a  middle 
school  where  he  stays  five  years;  at  seventeen 
he  goes  to  the  high-school  for  three  years,  and 
thence  to  the  university  for  a  three  or  four  years' 
course.  If  no  time  is  wasted,  and  there  are  no 
failures  at  examinations,  a  boy  may  graduate 
from  the  university  at  twenty-three  or  four,  but 
most  boys  are  not  so  fortunate.  They  are  par- 
ticularly weak  in  mathematics,  and  a  large  per- 
centage of  the  failures  throughout  the  school 
and  university  courses  are  in  this  department. 
The  result  is  that  many  boys  do  not  finish  their 
education  before  the  age  of  twenty-eight,  or 
thirty,  even.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  this 
is  an  Oriental  race,  and  the  men  are  old  men  at 
fifty.  With  us,  a  man  who  has  taken  care  of 
himself  is  in  his  prime  at  fifty,  and  the  respon- 
sible and  onerous  work  of  our  Western  world  is 
done  by  men  between  forty-five  and  seventy. 
We  have,  the  best  of  us,  forty  years  of  usefulness 


JAPAN  459 

between  twenty  and  sixty.  The  Japanese,  with 
exceptions,  of  course,  have  twenty-five,  between 
the  years  twenty-five  and  fifty.  If  the  most 
valuable  thing  in  life  is  stored-up  experience, 
well  used,  the  Japanese,  and  all  Orientals,  are 
at  a  tremendous  disadvantage  in  this  respect. 

There  are  three  questions  uppermost  in  the 
minds  of  intelligent  people  in  regard  to  the 
Japanese:  are  they  really  civilized,  have  they 
incorporated  our  civilization,  got  it  in  their 
blood,  or  merely  grasped  certain  features  of  it 
with  their  deft  hands  ?  will  the  alliance  with 
Great  Britain  be  renewed  ?  are  they  contem- 
plating, and  will  they  be  successful  in  an  attack 
upon  us?  My  own  answers  to  these  questions, 
and  I  have  tried  to  avoid  being  categorical,  will, 
I  trust,  be  found  in  what  I  have  written.  All  the 
sober-minded  Japanese  maintain  that  not  only 
have  they  adopted  our  civilization,  but  that  they 
are  putting  it  into  a  crucible  from  which  will 
emerge  a  higher  form  of  civilization  than  that 
to  which  we  have  attained  in  the  West.  They 
regard  the  non-renewal  of  their  alliance  with 
Great  Britain  as  improbable  in  the  present 
timorous  state  of  mind  of  British  statesmen. 
They  were  unanimous  in  telling  me,  an  Ameri- 
can, that  war  between  America  and  Japan  is 
preposterous,  impossible  for  financial  and  stra- 


460       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

tegical  reasons,  and  that  Germany  is  at  the 
bottom  of  all  these  false  alarms,  and  incentives 
to  quarrels  between  her  rivals  and  enemies; 
insisting,  and  I  believe  with  justice,  that  Ger- 
many is  now  in  a  position  where  war  between 
any  other  two  countries  would  profit  her,  weaken 
some  rival,  and  be  to  her  commercial  advan- 
tage. 

Few  men  of  importance  would  willingly  make 
war,  incite  to  war,  or  believe  in  war.  No  one 
not  crazed  by  the  thought  of  personal  revenge 
would:  "Pour  the  sweet  milk  of  Concord  into 
hell."  Those  who  have  seen  anything  of  the 
horrors  of  war  detest  it;  amateurs  in  uniform, 
with  staff-appointment  military  titles,  may  be 
pardoned  for  wishing  to  appear  as  brave  as  their 
uniforms. 

I  was  bored  by  Philippics  as  a  boy  in  col- 
lege, and  my  re-reading  of  the  classics  after  pass- 
ing thirty  increased  my  distaste  for  them.  I 
should  be  disappointed  and  sorry  to  have  what 
I  write  of  Japan  interpreted  as  a  wholesale 
denunciation,  as  a  swaggering  sort  of  ceterum 
censeo  Carthaginem  esse  delendam.  I  am  no 
sour  Cato. 

I  am,  however,  of  those  who  believe  that  the 
best  arguments  for  peace  are  those  well  fur- 
nished with  men,  arms  and  ammunition,  and 


JAPAN  461 

that  the  ambassadors  from  a  careless,  rich,  and 
defenceless  country  seeking  to  bring  about  an 
international  court  of  arbitration,  though  it  is  of 
all  things  most  to  be  desired,  must  necessarily  be 
impotent  envoys. 

There  is  no  more  doubt  that  both  Germany 
and  Japan  look  with  envy  upon  the  rich  and 
thinly  populated  countries  of  South  America,  and 
that  Japan  has  entered  Manchuria  to  stay,  than 
that  Germany  and  Japan  are  over-populated. 
The  thin  mantle  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  conceals 
fang  and  claw  only  until  the  opportunity  for 
profit,  or  the  pangs  of  hunger,  induce  us  to  throw 
it  off.  It  would  seem  that  our  bureaus  of  agri- 
culture, our  schools  of  technology  are  useless 
without  Annapolis  and  West  Point.  The  splen- 
did gift  of  Mr.  Carnegie  for  the  advancement  of 
peace  does  honor  to  every  Christian  and  to  every 
American,  but  that  travelled  and  intelligent 
gentleman  would  be  the  last  to  advocate  the 
sending  of  emissaries  for  peace,  with  the  halters 
of  disarmament  and  defencelessness  around 
their  necks. 

The  cost  of  even  the  moral  progress  we  have 
made  has  been  terrible;  and  it  is  not  false 
pride,  but  protection  for  our  ideals,  that  bids  us 
defend  ourselves  from  what  we  consider  lower 
forms  of  morals,  religion,  manners  and  customs. 


462        THE   AYEST  IN  THE   EAST 

It  is  astounding  that  England  and  America  do 
not  see  that  Japan  is  Materialism  proving  its 
efficiency.  The  Japanese  are  smiling  atheists 
and  agnostics,  and  yet  at  one  time  America  and 
Europe  were  hailing  with  admiration  their  sanity, 
happiness,  morality,  and  ability.  At  any  rate, 
that  attitude  means  good-by  Christianity,  and 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  Exeter  Hall, 
must  be  very  frivolous  or  very  ignorant  if  they 
preach  a  renewal  of  the  alliance  in  1915.  These 
people  would  make  Darwin,  Spencer,  Wallace 
and  Haeckel  point  in  triumph.  Not  one  of  the 
sanctions  or  authorities  of  Christendom  has  con- 
tributed to  their  success  or  to  their  present 
civilization.  It  is  purely  material,  touched  up 
with  ghostly  awe  of  ancestordom.  If  they  and 
their  gods,  their  woman  slavery,  their  historical 
and  commercial  untrustworthiness,  their  Ori- 
ental secretiveness  and  cruelty,  their  imitative 
militarism,  their  tyrannical  and  unrepresenta- 
tive government  of  themselves  and  their  con- 
quered aliens  can  be  received  on  equal  terms 
by  England  and  America,  then  Christ  is  a  mere 
ethical  luxury,  and  no  more  necessary  to  our 
civilization  than  the  "private  god"  of  my 
Hindu  friend  in  Udaipur. 


XI 


THINGS     JAPANESE,     KOREAN,     AND 
MANCHURIAN 

FROM  Hongkong  to  Yokohama  ought  not 
to  be  a  long  or  a  disturbed  voyage.  I 
travelled  on  rather  a  small  steamer  to 
avoid  waiting  for  a  large  one,  and  from  the  mo- 
ment we  steamed  away  from  the  dock  at  Hong- 
kong till  we  were  warped  alongside  at  Yoko- 
hama, the  description  of  the  sea  by  Horace, 
"inverso  mare"  was  fulfilled  to  the  letter.  Seven 
days  of  "inverso  mare,"  unrelieved  by  eruptive 
illness,  which  is  a  blessing  in  disguise  in  such 
situations ;  during  which  time  I  read  for  the  first 
time  in  many  years,  a  shelf  or  so  of  modern 
novels,  made  me  acquainted  at  least  with  the 
opiumonic  quality  of  such  literature.  These 
days  left  me  also  with  increased  respect  for 
Horace  as  a  realist.  Verily  nothing  is  so  power- 
less as  water  till  it  gets  into  motion ! 

It  was  a  rainy,  blustering  morning  when  we 
arrived ;  and  I  watched  with  interest  the  Japan- 
ese who  handled  the  ropes  and  cables  thrown  to 

463 


464        THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

them.  They  were  skilful  and  quick,  and  some- 
what uncanny  in  appearance;  long  arms  and 
long  bodies  on  short  sturdy  legs;  long  upper  lips, 
dark,  opaque  eyes,  and  an  air  of  doing  what  they 
had  to  do,  as  of  trained  animals.  No  one,  I 
imagine,  who  first  comes  in  contact  with  the 
Japanese,  is  not  impressed  by  their  unhuman 
appearance,  and  their  mental  and  moral  aloof- 
ness, and  difference  from  any  other  race  of  the 
same  ability  he  knows. 

The  custom-house  examination  was  prolonged, 
patient  and  rigorous,  but  my  luggage  was  passed 
as  inoffensive,  and,  tucked  into  a  jinrickisha w,  I 
was  trotted  off  to  the  hotel.  The  first  glimpse  of 
the  interior  of  the  hotel  told  me,  as  though  it  had 
been  proclaimed  by  the  hotel  clerk,  that  here 
the  influence  of  America  is  paramount.  The 
steam-heat,  and  the  hall  filled  with  rocking- 
chairs,  proved  it.  What  combination  more 
tempting  to  physical  and  mental,  and  conse- 
quently to  moral,  degeneration  can  be  made 
than  a  rocking-chair  and  a  cheap  novel  in  a 
steam-heated  room!  There  thev  were,  includ- 
ing  the  degeneration;  for  in  one  of  the  chairs 
was  an  over-plump  countrywoman,  looking  as 
though  she  were  choked  by  her  stays,  a  novel 
in  her  hands,  and  her  high  heels  tapping  the 
floor,  as  the  chair  swaved  back  and  forth. 


THINGS   JAPANESE  465 

Two  Japanese  in  livery  take  my  things  to 
my  room,  and  when  I  arrive  a  few  yards  behind 
them,  they  are  both  smirking  at  themselves  in  the 
mirror.  There  are  many  bitter  criticisms  of  the 
Japanese  these  days,  and  one  of  the  foremost  is 
that  they  are  conceited.  That  may  be,  but 
there  is  another  aspect  of  the  case  deserving 
mention.  They  are  new  at  the  game  of  civiliza- 
tion. The  grinding  monotony  of  life,  which  is 
the  portion  of  a  great  and  helpless  majority  in 
every  highly  civilized  society,  has  not  thrown  its 
pall  over  them  as  yet.  They  carry  luggage  to 
an  hotel  room,  they  wait  on  table,  they  run 
locomotive  engines  and  trolley-cars,  wave  flags 
from  the  crossings  at  passing  trains,  bow  for- 
eigners in  and  out  of  shops,  and  wait  upon  them 
from  behind  counters;  they  take  and  sell 
tickets  at  railway  stations,  do  housework,  serve 
as  guides  and  couriers,  travel  themselves  in 
trains  and  ships,  wear  uniforms  as  firemen, 
policemen,  soldiers,  sailors,  teachers,  judges, 
school-boys,  —  Japan  has  veritably  blossomed 
into  uniforms  —  govern  colonies  as  in  Formosa, 
Korea  and  Manchuria,  and  all  with  the  de- 
lighted alertness,  and  with  sidelong  glances  at 
themselves  in  mirrors  when  opportunity  offers, 
as  of  children  playing  with  new  toys. 

The  traveller  and  student  of  foreign  men  and 


466       THE   WEST   IN   THE   EAST 

manners,  who  falls  into  the  error  of  supposing 
that  his  personal  opinions  are  necessarily  dog- 
mas because  they  are  intolerant,  is  of  no  value 
as  a  guide  or  teacher.  These  Japanese  may  be 
conceited,  but  the  outstanding  feature  of  their 
society  is  their  delighted  interest,  their  air  of 
importance,  their  solemnity  in  doing  the  thou- 
sand and  one  little  things  that  we  have  done, 
and  seen  done  so  often,  that  we  are  tired  of 
them,  and  only  do  them  under  the  stress  of 
compulsion. 

I  have  seen  a  Japanese  using  a  telephone,  or 
a  type- writer,  punching  tickets  at  a  railway 
gate,  waving  a  flag  at  a  crossing,  pointing  out 
sights  to  travellers,  with  the  smiling  delight  and 
curiosity  of  a  child  looking  at  the  inside  of  a 
watch.  I  am  not  sure  that  this  unsophisticated 
attitude  toward  life  is  not  as  worthy  as  reading 
a  novel  in  a  rocking-chair,  in  a  steam-heated 
room. 

Germans  complain  that  the  French  are  con- 
ceited, and  prone  to  ridicule  others;  Americans 
accuse  the  English  of  being  conceited ;  and  as  for 
the  English,  they  simmer  slowly  but  constantly 
with  amusement  at  our  boasting,  our  proclama- 
tions, our  Fourth-of-July  oratory.  Perhaps  we 
all  think  the  Japanese  conceited,  because  we 
think  they  ought  not  to  be;    assuming  that  our 


THINGS   JAPANESE  467 

ideals  and  our  accomplishments  are  the  only 
proper  standards  of  measurement.  None  of  us 
would  be  less  agreeable  for  more  humility;  and 
we  should  certainly  all  be  gainers  if  before  pass- 
ing judgment  upon  others,  we  first  studied  them 
more  carefully.  More  than  half  the  distrust  be- 
tween one  another,  of  the  nations  of  the  earth,  is 
due  to  nothing  more  mysterious  than  just  plain, 
complete,  and  indifferent  ignorance. 

There  are  two  places  in  every  country  and 
every  city,  one  where  the  traveller  should  spend 
a  few  hours  in  studying  the  mass,  the  average; 
and  in  the  other  the  picked  few.  Those  two 
places  are  the  railway  stations  and  the  book- 
shops. In  Bombay  and  Calcutta  books  on  the 
French  Revolution,  on  Poland's  struggle  for 
freedom,  Herbert  Spencer  on  Education  and 
Ethics  were  in  demand.  Here  is  the  list  from 
a  Japanese  book-shop:  "Evolution  and  Adap- 
tation," Morgan;  "Electricity  and  Magnetism," 
Webster;  "Theory  of  Heat,"  Cotter;  "Dar- 
winism," Wallace;  "Pioneers  of  Science," 
Lodge;  "Fruit  Growing,"  Bailey;  "Fairy  Land 
of  Science,"  Lodge.  Mills's  "Representative 
Government,"  a  volume  of  five  hundred  pages 
in  Japanese,  has  reached  its  fourth  edition. 
When  I  visited  the  University  at  Tokio,  the 
President    told    me    that    the    popular    courses 


468       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

among  the  five  thousand  students  there  were 
engineering,  medicine,  lectures  on  the  physical 
sciences,  and  law.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  they 
have  picked  out  our  material  successes  as  best 
worth  studying  and  imitating;  and  they  have 
thrown  themselves  into  the  study  and  practice 
of  these  things  with  the  enthusiasm  and  aban- 
don of  amateurs,  to  whom  it  is  all  fresh  and 
new  and  exciting. 

It  is  a  commonplace  to  retail  the  facts  and 
figures  of  their  increased  commerce  and  ship- 
ping, their  growing  navy,  their  successfully 
tested  army,  their  use  of  modern  inventions  of 
all  kinds  and  the  development  of  mills  and  fac- 
tories and  ship-building  plants  at  Osaka,  Yoko- 
hama, Tokio,  Kioto,  Kobe,  Nagasaki,  Hako- 
date and  elsewhere;  and  their  mining  activities 
in  Japan,  and  in  Korea  and  Manchuria  as  well. 
The  important  thing  to  get  at  is  not  this 
material  advancement  that  stares  one  in  the  face 
everywhere,  and  which  may  be  found  in  detail 
in  any  year-book,  but  whether  it  is  real  and  last- 
ing, and  whether  these  amateurs  who  have 
stepped  boldly  into  the  ring  have  the  mental, 
moral  and  the  physically  nervous  staying  power 
to  stand  the  strain  of  it  all.  Thus  far  an  oli- 
garchical government  has  succeeded  in  transfer- 
ring the  old  clan  allegiance  of  the  Daimyos,  and 


THINGS   JAPANESE  469 

their  followers  the  Samurai,  to  the  Mikado. 
The  same  obedience,  self-sacrifice  and  dutiful- 
ness  have  been  relied  upon  to  take  up  and  carry 
on  this  material  and  military  expansion.  The 
personal  allegiance  has  been  translated  into 
patriotism ;  but  an  office  stool,  the  cab  of  a  loco- 
motive-engine, tending  mill  machinery,  building 
railroads  and  bridges,  supervising  the  tiresome 
routine  of  commercial  transactions,  are  worlds 
away  from  serving  and  fighting  for  a  lord,  who 
occupies  the  position  toward  his  followers  of 
both  father  and  ruler. 

Our  Western  journals  have  treated  the  recent 
attempt  upon  the  life  of  the  Japanese  Emperor 
as  though  it  were  similar  in  kind  and  of  no 
greater  importance  than  an  attempt  of  the  same 
kind  upon  a  Western  ruler.  It  is  as  different 
as  an  attempt  upon  the  life  of  the  Maharana  of 
Udaipur  by  Hindus,  or  upon  the  life  of  the  Pope 
by  Catholics,  is  different  from  an  attempt  upon 
the  King  of  Italy  by  Italians.  In  the  latter  case 
it  is  a  mad  expression  of  discontent,  in  the 
former  it  is  a  stab  at  the  heart  of  a  semi-religious 
Hindu  potentate,  or  of  Japan's  god.  What  re- 
ligion and  a  moral  code,  backed  by  the  united 
sentiments  of  our  best  citizens,  do  to  keep  us  in 
order,  this  allegiance  to  the  Mikado  does  for 
Japan.     It  is  an  ominous  sign  indeed  if  Mills's 


470       THE   WEST   IN  THE  EAST 

"Representative  Government,"  or  Spencer's 
"Ethics,"  has  upset  the  Japanese  loyalty,  which 
far  more  than  any  other  factor  supplies  the  driv- 
ing power  for  their  progress  and  success.  It 
seems  to  have  passed  unnoticed  even,  except,  I 
believe,  by  one  correspondent  of  an  American 
journal,  that  a  special  tribunal  was  necessary  to 
try  the  case,  as  the  crime  was  so  outside  the 
realm  of  the  conceivable  in  Japan,  that  no  Jap- 
anese court  was  so  constituted  as  to  be  availa- 
ble for  the  trial  of  such  an  offence.  In  another 
chapter,  written  before  this  attempt  upon  the  life 
of  the  Japanese  Emperor,  I  suggested  the  grave 
danger  to  orderly  social  and  political  progress  in 
Japan,  once  the  badly  digested  rationalism  of  the 
West  succeeds  in  making  inroads  among  these 
people  of  superficial  political  training.  They 
are  agnostic  to  begin  with,  and  once  the  mythical 
cords  that  have  bound  them,  in  blind  faith,  to 
obedience  to  the  spirits  of  the  ancestors  of  the 
Mikado  are  strained  and  broken,  and  the  in- 
dividual recognizes  no  law  higher  than  his  own 
will,  the  small  knot  of  elder  statesmen  who  now 
rule  Japan  will  have  a  serious  problem  to  meet. 
It  will  not  be  merely  the  problem  of  rationalism 
and  anarchy  which  faces  us  all;  but  it  will  be 
the  problem  of  substituting  a  new  driving  power 
for  all  their  military,  commercial,  and  industrial 


THINGS   JAPANESE  471 

forces,  and  a  new  bond  to  hold  the  people  to- 
gether as  a  nation. 

The  attempt  upon  the  life  of  the  Emperor  of 
Japan,  led  by  a  Japanese  who  had  studied  in 
America,  and  who  had  edited  a  newspaper  there, 
is  the  most  momentous  thing  that  has  happened 
in  Japan  in  half  a  century.  It  strikes  at  the 
very  root  of  all  that  makes  and  keeps  Japan  a 
nation.  It  weakens  Japan's  heart,  and  dilutes 
the  purity  and  fervor  of  patriotism  at  all  the 
extremities.  A  rent  has  been  made  in  the  veil 
hiding  the  mystery  which  every  Japanese  fears, 
worships  and  obeys,  and  we  superficial  ob- 
servers in  the  West  have  passed  it  by  without 
so  much  as  an  inkling  of  its  real  significance. 
It  can  only  be  likened  in  its  effects  upon  the 
nation  to  the  change  of  feeling  here,  if  we  should 
suddenly  become  possessed  of  a  craze  for  matri- 
cide. 

Tokio  is  only  some  eighteen  miles  by  train 
from  Yokohama.  Tokio  is  spread  over  a  dis- 
proportionate area  for  its  population,  and  the 
distances  when  measured  by  jinrickisha w  speed 
are  great.  It  is  not  a  capital  city  in  our  sense. 
There  are  many  buildings  of  stone  and  streets 
of  shops,  there  are  jangling  trolley-cars  and  elec- 
tric lighting,  but  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
area  of  Tokio  is  covered  with  small,  cheap  houses 


472       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

of  the  flimsy  architecture  common  in  Japan. 
There  is  an  air  of  unkemptness  about  the  city, 
as  of  a  shabby-genteel  town  assuming  the  air  of 
greatness  and  prosperity.  But  redeeming  every- 
thing else  at  this  particular  season  are  the  cherry 
trees  in  full  bloom. 

There  is  nothing  quite  like  these  avenues  of 
pink  blossoms  in  the  streets  and  in  the  parks; 
and  nothing  at  all  like  the  national  pride  and 
pleasure  in  them,  of  all  the  people,  old  and  young, 
and  of  every  social  grade.  There  are  pilgrim- 
ages and  picnics  to  the  parks  and  other  places 
where  the  blooms  are  seen  to  best  advantage. 
The  Emperor's  garden-party,  given  in  honor  of 
the  height  of  the  cherry-blossom  season,  is  a 
matter  for  much  coming  and  going  of  high  offi- 
cials of  state,  of  much  discussion  of  the  weather, 
and  of  much  debate  as  to  the  exact  day  to  choose, 
when  the  blooms  will  be  at  their  best.  It  is  a 
great  function,  this  garden-party,  and  the  cour- 
tesy of  our  distinguished  ambassador  to  Japan 
procured  me  an  invitation,  which  I  was  obliged 
to  decline.  The  time-table  of  the  Trans-Sibe- 
rian railway  and  my  days,  engaged  weeks  in  ad- 
vance, and  full  at  that,  prevented  my  waiting. 
At  Kobe,  however,  I  saw  a  Cherry-Dance,  and 
nowhere  in  the  East  a  more  lovely  succession 
of  scenes  in  color. 


THINGS   JAPANESE  473 

Before  the  Cherry-Dance  in  the  theatre  proper, 
there  was  a  Tea  Ceremonial,  or  Cha  No  Yu. 
It  is  claimed  that  four  or  five  years  of  training 
and  tuition  are  necessary  to  arrive  at  proficiency 
in  all  the  intricacies  of  this  ceremony.  In  this 
case  it  lasted  an  hour.  All  the  innumerable 
utensils  for  tea-making  are  brought  in  and 
placed  in  position  with  great  solemnity,  and  with 
much  manoeuvring  and  bowing.  The  attend- 
ants, or  acolytes,  are  little  girls  in  brilliant  ki- 
monos and  obis,  all  of  them  painted  and  pow- 
dered. Finally  a  gorgeous  professional,  escorted 
by  the  whole  band  of  acolytes,  her  face  painted, 
her  eyebrows  pencilled,  her  hair  oiled  and  shin- 
ing, and  dressed  over  and  around  a  mass  of  huge 
combs,  clad  in  a  marvellous  and,  as  I  was  in- 
formed, priceless  garment,  and  embroidered  on 
it  in  gold  a  splendid  yellow  dragon  five  feet 
long,  shuffles  into  the  room  and  seats  herself  to 
make  the  tea.  Every  move  and  gesture  is  cal- 
culated and  prescribed,  and  after  countless 
solemn  manipulations  of  the  utensils  the  steam 
rises,  the  water  is  poured,  the  tea  is  made.  The 
guests  numbering  a  hundred  or  more  are 
seated  on  mats  on  the  floor.  After  this  chief- 
priestess  has  performed  her  part,  she  leaves  the 
room,  and  another  woman,  clad  in  similar 
splendor,  takes  her  place  and  serves  the  tea. 
The  cups  are  passed  by  the  little  girls,  who,  after 


474       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

handing  you  your  cup,  bend  down  and  touch 
the  floor  with  their  foreheads,  and  you  are  sup- 
posed to  do  likewise  in  return.  The  tea  was  a 
green  powder,  of  acrid  flavor  and  quite  unlike 
the  tea  served  on  ordinary  occasions  in  Japan. 
Wherever  one  goes,  to  a  private  house,  to  a  shop, 
to  a  school,  to  call  on  the  Minister  of  War,  to 
visit  the  President  of  the  University,  to  the 
cavalry  school,  always,  at  whatever  time  of  the 
day,  tea  is  served ;  an  agreeable  and  wholesome 
custom,  for  it  is  little  more  than  a  pleasantly 
flavored  cup  of  hot  water,  and  one  can  hardly 
drink  too  often  or  too  much  of  that. 

Having  finished  our  tea,  the  doors  were  opened 
and  a  rush  was  made  for  seats  in  the  theatre. 
The  Japanese  have  not  adapted  their  old-time 
courtesy  and  gentle  manners  to  the  new  con- 
ditions of  a  steam  and  electricity  handled  popu- 
lation. Such  a  scramble  as  these  people  made 
to  get  through  the  narrow  door  and  up  the 
narrow  stairs!  Neither  women  nor  children 
were  regarded  by  the  men.  At  the  railway 
stations,  in  the  street-cars,  in  the  shops,  on  the 
sidewalks  where  there  are  any,  at  restaurants 
and  in  dining-cars,  their  lack  of  consideration, 
their  crowding,  shoving  and  loathsome  habits 
are  painful  to  see.  Their  bowing  and  kow- 
towing in  hotels  and  shops,  and  along  the  Cook 
itinerary,    is   as    though    one   should    judge    the 


THINGS   JAPANESE  475 

manners  of  the  English  or  the  Americans  by  the 
demeanor  of  the  assistants  in  fashionable  shops 
in  London  or  in  New  York.  The  faded  man- 
ners of  the  floor-walkers  in  our  great  shops, 
who  point  prospective  buyers  to  guns,  garters, 
or  gum-drops  with  impartial  animation,  are  not 
the  mirror  which  reflects  our  average  behavior 
to  one  another. 

Foolish  foreigners  fancy  that  these  funny 
Japanese  bows,  this  staccato  protruding  of  the 
salient  part  of  the  back  of  the  person,  accom- 
panied by  the  exaggerated  lowering  of  the  head 
to  the  level  of  the  waist,  many  times  repeated,  is 
a  form  of  prostration  before  their  superiority. 
It  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  It  is  no  more  than  a 
touching  or  a  lifting  of  the  hat,  and  is  a  per- 
functory performance  that  we  misinterpret  as 
an  acknowledgment  of  subserviency.  To  tell 
the  truth  our  manners  are  mostly  so  awkward, 
so  self-conscious,  and  so  bad,  that  we  have  come 
to  look  upon  any  manners  at  all  as  grotesque 
and  slightly  ridiculous.  While  we  are  smiling 
perhaps  disdainfully  at  the  ceremonious  polite- 
ness of  the  Japanese,  they,  and  with  far  more 
reason,  are  contemptuous  of  our  stiffness  and 
awkwardness. 

The  spectacle  in  the  theatre  depicted  the  four 
seasons  with  appropriate  dances  for  each.     We 


476       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

were  in  the  gallery  facing  the  stage.  The  gal- 
leries along  the  sides  of  the  theatre  were  oc- 
cupied by  the  musicians,  all  women,  armed 
with  triangles,  small  hand-drums  and  the  three- 
stringed  banjo,  called  the  Samisen.  This  favor- 
ite instrument  was  only  introduced  into  Japan 
from  Manila  as  late  as  1700.  In  front  of  these 
sat  the  singers :  on  one  side  the  sopranos,  and  on 
the  other  the  altos.  One  or  two  of  the  women 
sang  solos,  accompanied  by  the  rest  as  chorus. 
One,  a  powerful  contralto  voice,  was  pleasant 
to  the  ear;  though  the  monotonous  sing-song, 
punctuated  by  recurring  birdlike  pipings,  was 
totally  unlike  any  music  we  ever  hear. 

The  dancing  here,  as  elsewhere  in  Japan,  is 
rather  posturing  and  posing  than  dancing.  The 
feet  are  seldom  lifted  from  the  floor,  and  the 
pantomime  is  all  done  with  twisting  and  turning 
and  bending  of  the  body  and  waving  of  the  arms. 
It  was  the  clever  lighting,  and  the  harmonious 
colors  of  the  dresses  of  the  women,  which  made 
the  pictures  beautiful.  Whether  the  untamed 
taste  of  Broadway,  Leicester  Square  and  Mont- 
martre  would  find  such  gentle  pantomimic 
manoeuvres,  brilliantly  and  beautifully  colored 
though  they  be,  served  with  enough  condiment, 
I  doubt.     So  much  the  worse  for  us! 

Another  evening  I  was  the  guest  of  a  Japanese 


THINGS   JAPANESE  477 

gentleman  to  dinner  at  a  restaurant  or  tea- 
house. We  have  no  equivalent  for  these  places, 
and  perhaps  the  cafes  and  smaller  restaurants 
of  the  Latin  countries  are  more  nearly  of  the 
same  service  to  the  people.  There  is,  of  course, 
the  broad  difference  that  these  places  in  Japan 
are  served  by  women,  and  that  women  are  in- 
variably the  entertainers.  We  were  served  in  a 
large,  plain  room,  scrupulously  clean,  with  no 
furniture,  and  the  floor  covered  with  matting. 
Two  bronzes,  a  beautiful  painted  screen  and 
a  sepia  drawing  by  a  modern  Japanese  artist 
were  there,  and  nothing  else.  We  sat  upon 
cushions  with  an  ash-filled  brasier  between  us. 
This  brasier  was  not  for  warmth,  but  to  light 
the  small  Japanese  pipes,  and  to  receive  the 
ashes,  when  after  two  or  three  puffs  they  are 
emptied.  Five  young  dancing  girls  in  bright 
costumes,  and  some  seven  or  eight  others  in 
more  sombre  garb,  entered,  went  down  on  their 
knees  before  us,  touching  the  ground  with  their 
foreheads.  Tea  is  brought  in,  and  they  sit  in  a 
semicircle  around  us.  The  meal  itself  was  a 
procession  of  small  dishes,  brought  in  one  or 
two  at  a  time  and  left.  Whether  you  eat  of 
them  or  not,  or  whether  more  are  brought,  none 
is  taken  away;  so  that  before  the  meal  is  over 
you   are    surrounded    by   as   many   as    twenty 


478       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

dishes  or  more.  Some  of  the  features  of  this 
particular  meal  were  snail  soup,  sweets,  raw 
fish,  various  vegetables,  carrots,  beans,  parsnips, 
egg-plant,  asparagus,  young  bamboo  shoots, 
sweet-potatoes,  stewed  meat,  and  all  accom- 
panied by  frequent  libations  of  sake  out  of  tiny 
cups.  Each  guest  has  a  bowl  of  fresh  water  in 
which  he  rinses  his  cup  after  drinking,  fills 
it,  passes  it  to  one  of  the  women,  who  drinks, 
rinses  the  cup,  passes  it  back  with  a  low  bow, 
and  so  on  and  so  on.  Sake  is  served  warm,  and 
tastes  like  weak  sherry.  Whether  it  is  intoxi- 
cating or  not,  I  did  not  discover.  I  must  have 
drunk  dozens  of  these  small  cups  of  it  on  this 
occasion,  and  at  other  similar  functions  that  I 
attended,  but  I  never  noticed  that  it  had  the 
smallest  effect. 

During  the  meal  some  of  the  women  thrum 
the  Samisen  and  others  dance,  alone  or  in  pairs, 
or  the  whole  company  together.  During  the 
interval  we  are  supposed  to  be  entertained  con- 
versationally, and  for  aught  I  know  to  the  con- 
trary, there  may  be  veritable  Aspasias  among 
these  butterfly-robed  people.  There  is  much 
bowing  and  smiling  and  paying  of  compliments; 
but  making  pretty  speeches  through  an  inter- 
preter is  much  like  icing  vintage  claret.  As 
thev  become  more  at  their  ease,  they  interest 


THINGS   JAPANESE  479 

themselves  in  my  watch,  my  cigar-case,  my 
eye-glass,  and  all  want  the  bands  from  the 
cigars.  There  is  no  solicitation,  no  buffoonery, 
no  coarseness.  Their  sisters  of  that  profession 
elsewhere  are  not  so  well-behaved.  The  dishes, 
tasted,  or  untouched,  or  half-eaten,  form  a  small 
garden  around  us,  and  finally,  after  more  tea, 
our  entertainers  fall  to  and  devour  what  is  left. 
One  of  them  cuts  the  middle  out  of  a  piece  of 
bread — which  had  been  provided  for  me — and 
puts  butter  and  mustard  not  only  on  it  but 
around  it,  and  poses  as  being  very  sophisticated 
in  European  ways  of  eating. 

After  sitting  on  one's  hind  legs  for  three 
hours,  with  nothing  to  lean  against,  stiffness 
joins  the  company.  About  10.30  p.  m.  I  ask 
to  be  excused.  I  fear  that  I  am  not  much  of 
a  Japanese  blade.  They  bow  and  smile  and 
chatter  as  I  leave,  and  my  friend  tells  me  that 
they  suggest  that  I  marry  them  all  and  take  them 
to  America;  and  I  reply  that  nothing  but  our 
drastic  emigration  laws  prevent  that  happy 
polygamous  consummation  of  so  pleasant  an 
evening. 

Through  the  courtesy  of  the  Minister  of  War, 
I  was  escorted  to  the  cavalry  barracks,  a  few 
miles  out  of  Tokio,  and  spent  some  hours 
watching  the  men,  horses,  and  the  drill  in  the 


480       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

riding-school.  The  Japanese  census  affirms  that 
there  are  some  1,300,000  horses  in  Japan.  I 
was  so  surprised  at  this  that  I  wrote  to  the 
Agricultural  Department,  asking  if  they  would 
confirm  these  figures.  They  replied  that  the 
figures  were  as  follows,  sending  me  a  detailed 
statement  of  the  number  of  horses  of  Japanese 
breed,  mixed  breed  and  foreign  breed  in  each 
province,  and  putting  the  total  at  1,494,506. 
On  looking  up  the  figures  for  one  province,  I 
found  that  there  was  one  horse  there  for  every 
eight  inhabitants,  men,  women,  and  children! 
Where  they  keep  these  horses,  unless  they  have 
caves  for  them,  it  would  tax  the  powers  of  the 
most  credulous  traveller  to  discover.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  their  strong  desire  to  impress  the 
foreigners  with  their  prosperity,  and  their  ab- 
normal weakness  in  mathematical  matters,  have 
combined  to  exaggerate  the  number  of  Japanese 
horses.  Certainly  an  undeniably  ludicrous  out- 
come of  these  particular  weaknesses  are  the 
figures  for  school  attendance,  where  the  state- 
ment is  made  that  for  the  year  1907-8  the  per- 
centage of  those  of  school  age  attending  school 
was  97.38!  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  real  per- 
centage is  about  72.  I  travelled  nearly  the 
whole  length  of  Japan,  and  visited  every  large 
city,  but  I  did  not  see  a  thousand  horses  in  all, 


THINGS  JAPANESE  481 

even  including  those  at  the  cavalry  barracks. 
The  climate,  too,  has  a  curious  effect  upon 
foreign-bred  horses  imported  into  Japan,  and 
they  die  of  a  nervous  disease  that  thus  far  has 
not  been  remedied. 

The  Japanese  is  not  a  born  horseman.  The 
cavalry  lines  were  clean,  the  grooming  seemed 
to  be  thoroughly  done,  what  I  saw  of  it;  but  the 
saddles  were  awkward  affairs,  and  not  always 
in  good  repair,  and  of  bitting  a  horse  they 
seem  to  know  nothing.  The  horses  I  saw  were 
whalers  or  country-bred,  with  a  few  exceptions 
that  looked  to  be  of  better  breeding.  The  work 
in  the  school  was  elementary,  and  even  the  men 
who  had  been  at  it  longest  were  awkward  horse- 
men, and  not  at  home  in  the  saddle.  But  they 
are  plucky  enough,  there  is  no  doubt  of  that. 
A  dozen  of  them,  each  with  a  different-colored 
scarf,  were  sent  racing  across  country,  to  pick 
up  a  scarf  corresponding  in  color,  and  return 
with  it.  First  they  went  down  a  fairly  steep 
hill  with  a  small  water-jump  at  the  bottom,  up 
the  opposite  bank,  there  they  dismounted  to 
pick  up  the  scarf,  then  a  hurdle  or  two,  and  back 
to  the  starting-point  at  full  gallop.  One  man 
was  thrown  going  down  the  hill,  caught  his  foot 
in  his  stirrup,  was  dragged  some  distance,  but 
clung  to  his  bridle-reins,  and  only  lost  his  horse 


482       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

when  the  reins  broke.  Even  then,  dazed  and 
stumbling,  he  started  after  his  horse,  and  was 
only  finally  persuaded  to  limp  away  by  those 
who  ran  to  help  him,  when  an  officer  ordered 
him  to  do  so.  I  walked  out  to  have  a  look  at 
him,  and  found  his  face  battered  and  bruised, 
and  in  a  condition  which  would  have  made  most 
men  ask  for  a  litter.  Later,  wearing  masks  and 
padded,  they  opposed  one  another  with  single- 
sticks. They  were  a  happy,  laughing  crowd, 
evidently  enjoying  their  job,  of  an  average  age 
of  about  twenty,  and  officers  and  men  seemed 
to  be  much  on  the  same  level  and  companion- 
able. 

It  was  during  my  visit  to  Japan  that  Sub- 
marine Number  6  was  lost,  with  all  hands. 
Lieutenant  Sakuma,  her  commander,  while  he 
was  slowly  suffocating,  writes  a  detailed  state- 
ment of  how  it  happened,  praises  his  crew,  and 
recommends  their  families  to  the  care  of  the  state. 
"Words  of  apology  fail  me,"  he  writes,  "for 
having  sunk  His  Majesty's  Submarine  Number 
6.  My  brave  men  are  doing  their  best."  On 
raising  her,  it  was  discovered  that  the  machinery 
was  at  fault,  and  the  commander  not  wholly  to 
blame;  but  for  sheer  grit  and  courageous  cool- 
ness, we  must  give  Lieutenant  Sakuma  his  place 
among  the  bravest  of  any  nation. 


THINGS   JAPANESE  483 

Thanks  to  the  courtesy  and  kindness  of  the 
American  Ambassador,  of  Captain  Brinckley  — 
the  most  valuable  ally  Japan  possesses  —  Vis- 
count Kaneko,  the  Prime  Minister,  Minister  of 
War,  and  the  British  and  German  ambassadors 
in  Tokio,  I  saw  many  things,  and  conveniently, 
that  otherwise  I  might  not  have  seen  at  all.  But 
the  details  of  a  traveller's  diary  are  perhaps  less 
interesting  than  the  main  features  of  the  map 
he  draws  as  he  goes  along. 

Everywhere,  at  the  universities,  the  schools, 
hospitals,  military  posts,  in  the  few  houses  of 
Japanese  gentlemen  I  was  privileged  to  see, 
even  in  the  streets,  and  the  country  one  sees  from 
the  car-window,  one  is  impressed  by  the  neat- 
ness of  it  all.  There  seems  to  be  no  rubbish  in 
Japan  anywhere.  Even  in  a  great  manufact- 
uring town  like  Osaka  there  is  no  untidiness. 
Their  tastes  are  still  simple,  their  houses  have 
little  furniture,  their  wardrobes  are  scanty  as 
compared  to  ours,  and  they  know  nothing  as  yet 
of  the  squandering  of  luxury,  and  their  women 
are  all  workers  and  not  wasters.  They  travel 
through  life  with  comparatively  little  baggage, 
and  they  are  a  poor  people.  The  salaries  of 
office-holders,  teachers,  army  and  navy  officers 
and  professional  men  generally,  are  wofully  small. 
Our  race,  however,  produces  many  poor  who  are 


484       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

wasters,  tempted  into  carelessness  because  pub- 
lic or  private  philanthropy  is  enthusiastic  in  its 
care  of  the  careless;  but  the  Japanese  combine 
neatness  and  economy  to  an  extent  unknown 
even  in  France  and  Belgium. 

I  had  expected  to  find  the  English  language 
spoken  by  a  few  well,  and  smatteringly  by  many, 
in  Japan.  Certain  of  their  officials  do  speak 
the  language  well,  but  many  do  not.  As  for  the 
English  of  most  of  the  scholars,  and  some  of  the 
school-teachers,  it  is  not  English  at  all.  The 
Japanese  are  dismissing  as  rapidly  as  possible  all 
foreigners  whom  they  have  employed  to  train 
them  in  Western  ways,  from  professors  and 
school-teachers,  to  engineers,  draughtsmen  and 
foremen  in  mills  and  factories.  This  is  done 
partly  from  motives  of  economy,  and  partly  be- 
cause here,  and  as  I  believe  in  almost  all  other 
departments  of  life,  they  feel  themselves  to  be 
capable  of  going  it  alone.  Though  the  philolo- 
gists say  that  the  Japanese  language  is  not  related 
to  the  Chinese,  the  Japanese  have  adopted  a 
large  number  of  Chinese  words,  and  all  their  new 
words  are  from  the  Chinese,  just  as  we  make 
new  words  from  the  Latin  and  Greek.  This 
accounts  for  the  fact  that  the  Japanese  and 
Chinese  can  communicate  by  the  written  signs 
common  to  both,  though  they  do  not  understand 


THINGS   JAPANESE  48.5 

one  another's  speech.  If  the  Japanese  continue 
to  be  taught  English  as  now  they  are  taught,  we 
shall  be  able  to  communicate  by  our  written 
language;  but  the  English  we  speak  and  the 
English  they  will  speak  eventually,  will  be  so 
totally  different  that  we  shall  not  be  able  to 
understand  one  another's  speech.  In  a  dozen 
or  more  schools  I  visited  the  class-rooms  where 
English  or  French  was  being  taught.  Without 
the  text  before  you  it  would  have  been  impos- 
sible to  follow  the  spoken  English  or  the  spoken 
French.  A  Japanese  youth  taught  English  by 
a  Japanese,  who  then  teaches  another  Japanese, 
lands  the  last  of  the  three  with  a  pronunciation 
of  English,  which  makes  him  unintelligible  in 
that  tongue.  This  seems  to  be  carrying  one's 
independence  of  foreign  aid  to  an  absurd  pitch. 
All  their  schools  have  military  training,  and 
there  they  are  in  advance  of  us.  Athletics  took 
the  place  of  enforced  physical  training  when 
we  had  a  small  population  more  agricultural 
than  manufacturing,  out-door  workers  rather 
than  house  workers,  and  our  public  schools  con- 
tained children  of  all  classes.  This  is  not  the 
case  now  that  we  have  a  population  larger  than 
any  other  country  except  China,  India,  and 
Russia.  Our  athletics,  splendid  training  though 
they  be,  only  help  a  comparatively  small  number; 


486       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

and  leave  out  unfortunately  just  those  who  most 
need  careful  physical  supervision  and  training. 
Every  school  and  university  in  our  country 
ought  to  have  compulsory  physical  drill  of  some 
sort;  and  we  are  wasting  time  and  money  on 
hygiene  and  hospitals,  in  fabulous  amounts  and 
to  little  purpose,  until  we  begin  at  the  beginning 
with  our  children  and  youths. 

Of  travel  in  Japan,  the  most  noticeable  feat- 
ure to  me  was  the  positively  startling  disregard 
of  the  Japanese  travellers  for  Western  conven- 
iances.  In  so  many  other  departments  of  life 
they  are  making  a  point  of  putting  the  best  foot 
forward,  and  of  showing  off  their  Europeaniza- 
tion,  but  in  the  trains  apparently  they  forget 
themselves.  They  take  their  shoes  off  and  sit 
curled  up,  or  sprawled  out  upon  the  seats  (not 
those  with  Japanese  foot-wear  alone,  when  it  is 
natural  and  cleanly  enough,  but  those  wearing 
European  shoes) ;  they  hawk,  spit,  yawn,  and 
stretch,  and  after  luncheon  several  of  the  men 
indulged  in  loud  belching  audible  the  length  of 
the  car.  Men  and  women  go  to  the  lavatory, 
leaving  the  door  open;  they  take  children  there, 
and  then  bring  them  back,  and  clean  their  least 
presentable  parts  in  the  middle  of  the  car;  and 
suckle  them  with  no  pretence  of  veiling  the  proc- 
ess.    The  eating  of  some  of  the  men  in  the  dining- 


THINGS   JAPANESE  487 

car  was  like  the  hungry  gobbling  and  bolting  of 
a  dog.  They  seemed  to  love  meat,  probably 
because  they  rarely  get  it,  and  ate  it,  some  of 
them,  in  great  quantities.  One  man  arrived  in 
the  dining-car  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  and  began 
spitting  on  the  floor.  The  floor  of  the  main  car, 
after  an  hour  or  so,  was  covered  with  ashes, 
orange-peel,  stumps  of  cigars  and  cigarettes, 
and  in  the  midst  of  this  chaos  was  heard  the 
snores  of  one  or  two  sleepers.  I  have  never 
been  so  nearly  acquainted  with  the  habits  of  a 
monkey-cage,  as  in  some  of  the  Japanese  rail- 
way carriages.  I  am  not  a  fussy  traveller. 
Neither  my  digestion  nor  my  disposition  was 
disturbed  by  these  things.  I  note  them  as  com- 
ments upon  the  rather  mawkish  praise  of  Japan- 
ese manners  that  one  hears  from  short-sighted 
idealists.  Indeed  I  was  so  surprised  at  the 
manners  of  the  Japanese  when  at  their  ease, 
that  I  called  the  attention  of  my  Japanese  friend 
to  these  incidents,  one  after  another,  saying  to 
him:  "You  know  if  this  were  written  down,  the 
writer  would  be  accused  of  exaggeration." 

The  traveller  should  see  Nikko,  Lake  Chu- 
zenji,  Arashi-yama,  the  rapids  of  the  brawling 
river  and  the  mountain;  the  mountain  of  Fuji, 
the  Inland  Sea,  Miyajima,  and  of  course  much 
more  besides;    but  these  because  he  sees  things 


488       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

there  which  are  beloved  of  the  Japanese,  and 
he  gets  something  of  the  Japanese  point  of  view 
as  regards  scenery.  Even  the  fields,  and  the 
landscape  seen  from  car-windows,  are  divided 
like  the  patterns  of  a  carpet.  Here  and  there 
patches  of  the  yellow  rape  seed  and  the  lighter 
and  darker  shades  of  green,  make  the  fields  look 
as  though  they  had  been  sown  purposely,  not 
for  crops,  but  for  color.  The  neatness,  the  sym- 
metry, the  small  scale  of  everything  may  prove 
disappointing  at  first,  but  he  will  end  by  appre- 
ciation. This  is  the  unique  feature  of  Japanese 
landscape,  as  of  Japanese  art  and  life.  The 
mountain,  Fuji,  looks  like  a  colossal  ant-heap, 
and  is  as  smooth  and  symmetrical  as  though 
it  had  been  patted  into  shape  by  hand.  At 
Nikko,  the  ravines,  cascades,  small  streams,  the 
temples  and  shrines  and  walks  and  gardens,  are 
on  the  most  diminutive  scale.  The  mausolea 
of  Ieyasu,  the  first  Shogun,  and  of  his  grandson, 
and  the  innumerable  temples,  are  so  small  that 
one  is  at  first  inclined  to  resent  coming  so  far  to 
see  so  little.  But  the  workmanship  is  almost 
tiresome  in  its  minute  intricacy.  The  lacquer, 
the  carving,  gold,  copper,  bronze,  gilt,  all  in  pro- 
fusion, and  all  worked  smooth  and  in  perfection 
of  detail,  these  and  the  lanterns  of  carved  stone, 
iron  and  bronze,  are  things  one  expects  to  see  in 


THINGS   JAPANESE  489 

a  jeweller's  shop  rather  than  exposed  in  the  open 
air,  and  made  to  seem  all  the  tinier  by  the  groves 
of  truly  magnificent  cryptomeria  which  sigh  and 
sob  above  them. 

I  happened  upon  one  of  the  temples  on  the 
day  of  an  anniversary.  The  Buddhist  abbot 
and  his  priests  in  two  rows,  squatting  opposite 
one  another,  were  reciting  and  reading  prayers 
antiphonally.  The  Shinto  priest,  at  a  little 
distance  from  the  others,  was  participating  by 
his  presence.  It  sounded  like  mumbling  and 
groaning  and  hiccoughing  to  me,  but  possibly 
our  disjointed  praying  in  haste,  would  seem 
weird  enough  to  them. 

This  temple  was  a  huge  box  of  lacquer,  ex- 
aggeratedly ornamented,  and  only  large  enough 
to  contain  a  dozen  or  so  of  people.  The  temple 
of  Higashi-Hongwanji,  at  Kioto,  was  built  as 
lately  as  1895.  It  cost  $500,000  to  build,  and 
this  amount  was  contributed  in  small  sums,  by 
the  peasants  and  small  farmers  of  the  surround- 
ing provinces.  This  would  indicate  no  decay  of 
the  ancient  religious  fealty.  There  are  some 
195,000  Shinto  shrines  in  Japan,  and  many  of 
Japan's  great  men  have  temples  dedicated  to 
them.  The  tale  is  told  of  it,  that  the  timbers 
were  lifted  into  place  by  ropes  made  of  human 
hair    contributed     by    pious    women.     It    was 


490       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

fresher  than  the  others,  and  brilliant  in  black 
and  gold,  but  no  more  ambitious  in  architecture, 
and  less  careful,  it  seemed  to  me,  in  delicacy  of 
workmanship.  At  Kioto,  too,  is  one  of  the  huge 
heads  of  Buddha,  some  sixty  feet  high,  a  gro- 
tesque affair;  although  the  Daibutsu,  or  great 
Buddha  of  bronze  at  Kamakura,  not  far  from 
Yokohama,  is  an  imposing  monument.  Like  the 
pyramids  and  the  Sphinx,  it  imposes  upon  our 
restlessness  by  its  unmeaning  stability.  Just  to 
last  for  centuries,  asking  nothing,  answering 
nothing,  explaining  nothing,  doing  nothing, 
brings  us  up  sharp,  and  face  to  face,  with  the 
consciousness  of  how  fugitive  we  are,  and  how 
quickly  the  traces  of  the  wisest  and  strongest  of 
us  are  obliterated.  What  an  offence  such  a 
monument  must  be  to  a  citizen  of  Chicago  or 
Winnipeg! 

At  the  Art  Museum  at  Kioto  is  a  portrait  of 
a  priest  named  Fuku  Souzo,  said  to  have  been 
painted  by  the  Chinese  artist  Choshikyo  in  the 
twelfth  century.  If  it  is  genuine  and  has  not 
been  touched  up  by  a  later  hand,  it  is  one  of  the 
marvels  of  portraiture  of  that  age,  and  bears 
comparison  easily  with  any  portraiture  work  of 
the  same  time  in  Europe.  Japanese  painters, 
whether  of  screens  or  of  kakemonos,  had  the 
best  to  copy  from  in   the  work  of  the  Chinese 


THINGS   JAPANESE  491 

artists  of  the  days  when  they  were  pupils  of  the 
Chinese.  At  a  well-assorted  and  well-arranged 
special  exhibition  at  the  British  Museum  last 
year,  the  history  and  development  of  Japanese 
art  was  shown  in  a  series  of  examples  of  Chi- 
nese and  Japanese  paintings  and  drawings. 
The  Japanese  have  not  improved  upon  their 
teachers. 

These  temples  and  the  grounds  around  them, 
whether  the  Buddhist  temple  of  Asakusa  Hwan- 
non,  near  Tokio,  or  at  Nara,  Kioto,  Nikko,  or 
elsewhere,  are  picnic  and  pilgrimage  resorts.  In 
the  rooms  of  some  of  them  you  may  smoke  and 
have  tea;  at  others  you  may  buy  for  a  small 
sum  a  slip  of  paper  with  your  fortune  told  on  it; 
you  may  rub  a  wooden  image  to  ward  off  disease; 
you  may  throw  money  or  darts  of  paper  at  a 
wire  screen  in  front  of  an  image;  if  it  goes 
through  your  prayer  is  favorably  answered; 
there  are  tea-houses,  moving-picture  exhibitions, 
theatres,  side-shows  of  all  sorts;  in  a  word,  re- 
ligion is  complacent,  the  gods  may  be  wooed  by 
worldly  methods,  the  mysteries  remain  mysteries, 
but  the  powers  are  accommodating;  the  thou- 
sands of  small  wooden  slabs  nailed  up  with  the 
names  of  donors  on  them,  which  one  sees  in  all 
these  places,  denote  that  there  is  a  cheerful  ex- 
pectation of  rewards  in  return  for  gifts. 


492       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

It  is  all  as  open  and  gay  and  bright  and  child- 
ish as  a  sunny  day  in  the  nursery,  when  it  is 
decided  to  play  at  church.  One  may  see  in 
Spain  bright  posters  announcing  the  next  bull- 
fight posted  on  the  walls  of  the  churches;  Trust 
magnates  build  churches  and  support  parsons 
in  America;  the  House  of  Commons,  to  a  man, 
subscribes  to  a  benefit  for  a  prize-fight;  murder- 
ers in  Italy  present  candles  to  favorite  saints  to 
avoid  detection,  and  poisoners  become  popes, 
and  have  nephews  and  nieces.  One  must  go 
slow,  and  know  many  lands  and  many  peoples, 
and  the  manners  and  morals  of  them,  before  one 
prances  forth  on  one's  provincial  prejudices,  to 
set  the  world  to  rights. 

This  was  borne  in  upon  me  when  I  attended 
a  Japanese  theatre,  with  my  intelligent  Japanese 
friend.  A  Japanese  theatrical  performance  is 
practically  an  all-day  affair.  You  may  go  at 
noon  and  stay  till  nine  o'clock  at  night.  An 
agent  will  arrange  for  your  seats,  for  tiffin,  tea, 
dinner,  cigarettes,  sweets,  and  a  hot  bath,  if  you 
want  it,  at  a  neighboring  tea-house.  During  the 
intervals  you  may  walk  about  in  the  surrounding 
shops.  Families  and  parties  come  and  camp 
out  comfortably  for  the  day.  I  am  at  a  loss  to 
know  why  this  is  supremely  ridiculous,  except 
for  the  one  barbaric  reason  that  it  is  different. 


THINGS   JAPANESE  493 

Did  not  the  Athenians  sit  from  six  in  the  morn- 
ing, for  five  to  six  hours  at  a  stretch,  and  again 
for  hours  in  the  afternoon  to  see  a  tragedy  of 
vEschylus  performed  ?  Who  has  not  sat  through 
plays  and  operas,  and  monotonously  vulgar 
vaudeville  performances  at  home,  where  a  meal, 
and  a  nap,  or  a  bath,  would  have  been  consoling, 
comforting,  and  far  more  profitable  to  body  and 
mind  alike. 

Three  American  girls  and  two  American 
youths  sat  not  far  from  me.  They  pointed  and 
made  remarks  about  their  neighbors ;  one  of  the 
youths  actually  had  a  foot  sprawling  over  the 
railing  of  the  box.  The  girls  talked  that  cockney 
jargon  of  silly  slang,  which  is  the  mental  accom- 
plishment which  goes  with  gum-chewing  and 
that  intrepid  wardrobe,  which  is  low  and  per- 
forated at  the  neck  and  shoulders,  and  tight  to 
bursting  over  the  hips.  The  slender,  pale-faced, 
cigarette-inhaling  youths  wore  clothes  with 
padded  shoulders;  in  at  the  waist,  out  over  the 
hips,  and  in  again  at  the  ankles,  which  are  only 
produced,  and  only  worn,  by  those  who  regard 
linings  of  canvas  and  cotton-batting  as  an  alto- 
gether elusive  way  of  concealing  lack  of  breeding, 
exercise,  and  proper  feeding. 

How  the  Japanese  must  misinterpret  us  when 
they  see  such  a  group  as  this!     They  do  not 


494       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

know  that  nowadays  wealth  and  leisure  to 
travel  are  often  at  the  disposal  of  the  unedu- 
cated, ill-mannered,  ignorant,  and  self-assertive 
of  our  race. 

They  do  know  the  difference,  however.  A 
distinguished  Japanese  member  of  the  House  of 
Peers  was  commenting  to  me  upon  the  mistake 
so  many  of  our  men  make,  whether  in  diplomacy 
or  in  commerce,  in  attempting  to  over-reach 
rivals,  hustling  about  for  trade,  striving  at  any 
cost  to  get  something  tangible  for  their  country. 
"These  are  not  the  men  who  gain  the  valuable 
and  lasting  things  for  your  country,"  he  said. 
"They  seem  to,  but  it  is  not  so.  Your  scholars 
and  gentlemen,  your  modest  men,  are  those  who 
impress  us  most  and  win  our  most  valuable 
favors."  Then  he  said:  "I  have  always  thought 
it  curious  that  of  the  three  men  I  have  known  in 
my  career  as  statesman,  at  home  and  abroad, 
whom  I  considered  good,  all  were  Americans." 
One  of  these,  I  may  say,  was  a  certain  Ameri- 
can ambassador,  who  has  entirely  neglected  to 
advertise  himself. 

We  have  got  it  into  our  heads  that  diplomacy 
nowadays  demands  a  sort  of  political  travelling 
salesman.  Nothing  could  be  more  fatal.  Such 
men  are  irritants  rather  than  friend-makers ;  and 
not  only  in  the  East,  but  everywhere  else,  they 


THINGS   JAPANESE  495 

are  looked  upon  either  as  disguised  drummers 
for  trade,  or  as  the  best  an  ignorant  country  can 
send. 

It  is  true,  perhaps,  that  while  the  civilizations 
of  the  East  are  ever  analyzing  fate,  we  of  the 
West  are  ever  attempting  to  express  and  to 
stamp  our  will ;  but  all  the  more  reason  for  doing 
this  as  quietly  and  as  unobtrusively  as  possible. 
I  doubt  if  diplomacy  ever  gets  anything  of  real 
and  lasting  value  by  superior  and  cunning  bar- 
gaining. 

If  the  foreign  and  domestic  affairs  of  Japan 
were  regulated  by  such  men  as  the  gentleman  I 
have  just  quoted,  and  by  men  of  the  type  of 
Prince  Ito  and  others,  there  would  be  little  to 
criticise.  Even  the  taking  of  Korea  is  only  in 
line  with  our  own  policy  toward  Cuba,  or  Eng- 
land's toward  Burma. 

Korea  is  a  military  and  commercial  necessity 
to  Japan,  as  any  one  may  see  who  travels  from 
Tokio  to  Shimonoseki,  and  there  takes  steamer 
across  to  Fusan,  the  southern  port  of  Korea; 
travels  the  length  of  Korea,  from  Fusan  to  the 
Yalu  River,  and  then  through  southern  Man- 
churia to  Mukden,  and  then  on  to  Kharbin. 

Letters  from  Tokio  paved  my  way  for  this 
journey.  I  was  officially  chaperoned  by  the 
Japanese  from  the  time  I  left  Fusan,  escorted 


496       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

to  the  railway  station  by  the  Japanese  consul,  till 
I  took  the  train  at  Kharbin  for  Moscow. 

Everything  that  care  and  courtesy  can  do  to 
make  a  journey  instructive  and  comfortable 
was  done.  The  trip  across  the  water  from 
Shimonoseki  to  Fusan  was  on  a  fine  steamer, 
and  is  made  in  ten  hours  at  slow  speed,  from 
ten  o'clock  at  night  till  eight  the  next  morning. 
From  Fusan  on  a  good  broad-gauge  railroad  to 
Seoul  takes  another  ten  hours,  and  from  Seoul 
to  the  Yalu  River  is  a  fourteen  hours'  journey. 
The  bridge  across  the  Yalu  River  is  half  built, 
and  once  the  broad-gauge  railway  line  from 
Antung-Shien,  on  the  Manchuria  side  of  the 
Yalu  River,  to  Mukden  is  completed,  the  Japa- 
nese will  control  the  whole  trade  of  Manchu- 
ria. Treaties  and  tariffs  and  sentimental  open- 
doorism  will  avail  nothing.  There  will  be  a 
wide,  well-kept  open  door  to  be  sure,  but  with 
Japanese  in  uniform  as  custom's  officials,  police- 
men, and  soldiers  on  both  sides  of  it.  Osaka 
will  then  furnish  southern  China  with  piece 
goods,  and  the  middle  China  ore  fields  will  be 
tapped  for  the  benefit  of  Japanese  factories. 
Japanese  goods  can  be  shipped  in  bulk  from  as 
far  as  Tokio,  to  Mukden,  to  Kharbin,  to  Tien- 
tsin, to  Peking,  and  later,  when  the  railway  is 
finished,  not  only  to  Shanghai,  but  to  Canton. 


THINGS   JAPANESE  497 

Two  more  years,  and  you  may  go  in  a  Pullman 
car  from  Paris  to  Tokio;  and  as  for  freight, 
steam  ferries  from  Fusan  to  Shimonoseki  will 
enable  a  shipper  to  send  goods  in  sealed  cars 
from  Paris,  Berlin,  Amsterdam,  Vienna  to 
Tokio;  and  in  the  same  manner  from  Tokio  to 
those  capitals,  if  he  wishes. 

Korea  may  be  of  small  value  commercially; 
but  with  Japanese  industry  and  control,  and 
with  modern  agricultural  machinery,  Manchuria 
will  become  another  Canada,  and  feed  all  Japan 
and  more  besides. 

For  many  years  to  come,  if  these  be  the  lines 
of  development,  if  these  be  the  outlets  for  Japa- 
nese energy  and  emigration,  we  in  America  have 
nothing  to  fear  either  from  coolie  emigration  nor 
from  military  aggression.  Only  those  who  do 
not  know  the  situation;  who  have  not  seen  the 
feverish  activity  of  bridge  and  railway  build- 
ing; the  pushing  of  Japanese  settlers  into  and 
through  Korea  and  up  into  Manchuria;  the 
government  refusal  of  passports  to  Japanese 
wishing  to  go  West;  and  the  coaxing  of  Japan- 
ese families  and  laborers  into  Manchuria,  talk 
of  war  as  imminent. 

During  the  year  ending  June  30,  1908,  9,544 
Japanese  were  admitted  to  the  United  States 
(excluding  Hawaii) ;  while  during  the  year  end- 


498       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

ing  June  30,  1909,  only  2,432  were  admitted. 
These  figures  include  all  Japanese,  whether 
laborers  or  not.  For  the  year  ending  June  30, 
1910,  only  705  laborers  were  admitted  to  the 
United  States  from  Japan,  all  of  whom  were  re- 
turning laborers  or  parents,  wives  or  children  of 
domiciled  laborers.  The  immigration  of  Japa- 
nese into  Hawaii,  from  the  year  1908  to  the  year 
1909,  decreased  83  per  cent,  and  during  the  years 
1909  to  1910  more  Japanese  left  Hawaii  than  ar- 
rived there.  These  figures  show  the  trend  of 
events  in  Japan,  and  point  straight  to  the  real 
interests,  and  the  important  task,  which  is  in 
Manchuria.  Not  even  the  most  infatuated  ad- 
mirer of  Japan,  not  even  the  most  sensitive  ob- 
server of  the  signs  of  war,  can  believe  that  Japan 
at  this  time  can  govern,  settle  and  develop 
Formosa,  Korea  and  Manchuria,  and  occupy 
the  Philippines  and  our  Western  coast  at  the 
same  time.  Russia  has  been  appeased  and 
is  quiescent,  and  China  is  still  comatose  for 
the  moment,  but  for  years  to  come  Japan  will 
have  all  she  can  do  to  consolidate  her  power 
there. 

Japan  is  heavily  in  debt,  her  resources  are 
small,  and  the  tasks  she  has  undertaken  are 
difficult,  and  until  they  are  finished  there  will  be 
no  returns,  no  dividends.     She  has  use  for  nil 


THINGS   JAPANESE  499 

the  money  and  all  the  men  she  can  lay  hands 
on ;  and  for  the  present,  at  least,  she  has  no  use 
for  the  Philippine  Islands  or  for  Alaska.  Her 
greatest  difficulty  now  is  her  lack  of  first-class 
trained  men  to  do  her  work  for  her.  She  has 
gone  much  too  fast,  not  only  in  accepting  new 
burdens,  but  in  dismissing  her  European  ad- 
visers and  instructors,  whether  from  conceit  or 
economy.  Even  the  Chinese  are  dismissing 
Japanese  engineers  and  builders,  and  turning 
again  to  Europeans,  finding  them  in  the  long 
run  cheaper. 

The  taking  over  and  control  of  Korea  was 
not  a  difficult  task.  Korea  has  a  population  of 
about  10,000,000  of  the  laziest,  the  most  good- 
for-nothing  Orientals  in  the  world.  For  cen- 
turies they  have  submitted  to  robbery,  extortion, 
and  bullying  from  depraved  rulers.  As  lately 
as  1906  the  Korean  Emperor  proposed  a  dis- 
bursement of  $600,000  for  the  suitable  celebra- 
tion of  his  wedding,  this  sum  representing  about 
one-seventh  of  the  total  revenues  of  the  country 
for  one  year!  Nearly  one-half  the  population 
to-day  is  without  regular  occupation.  Even  as 
lately  as  1895  it  was  indeed  the  "Hermit  King- 
dom," and  an  unknown  land.  The  king  and 
an  enormous  court  following  treated  the  Kore- 
ans like  children,  taxed  them,  beat  them,  and 


500        THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

robbed   them.     Shiftlessness,    indifference,   and 
moral  recklessness  were  the  result. 

China,  Russia,  and  Japan  pulled  the  Korean 
Emperor  this  way  and  that,  until  the  strongest 
and  most  persistent  won,  and  now  Korea  is  in 
the  hands  of  Japan.  The  export  and  import 
trade  of  Korea  in  1908  amounted  to  yen  55,138,- 
833;  both  exports  and  imports  have  practically 
doubled  since  1904.  Since  the  Japanese  took 
control,  the  rural  house  tax,  for  example,  has 
increased  from  454,829  houses  and  yen  136,448 
to  1,946,673  houses  and  yen  583,994.  The 
stamp  receipts  in  1905  were  yen  1,860;  in  1908 
they  were  yen  120,972.  Korea  is  now  gar- 
risoned by  Japanese  soldiers;  there  is  a  Japa- 
nese police  force,  with  a  few  Koreans  in 
subordinate  places;  the  whole  administration 
system  is  being  reorganized;  there  are  Japanese 
courts  and  judges;  the  revenues  from  mines 
and  forests  and  taxes,  formerly  monopolized 
and  wasted  by  the  imperial  household,  are  prop- 
erly used;  the  legal  age  of  marriage  has  been 
raised  to  seventeen  for  men,  fifteen  for  women; 
and  a  sum  of  $10,000,000  granted  to  Korea  for 
needed  reforms.  Industrial  schools,  hospitals, 
girls'  and  boys'  high  schools,  normal  schools, 
many  of  which  I  visited,  have  been  set  going  and 
are  well  managed  by  the  Japanese.     At  Seoul. 


THINGS   JAPANESE  501 

the  capital,  I  was  taken  through  the  law  courts, 
the  prison,  police  stations,  and  I  spent  many 
hours  in  class-rooms,  saw  the  drilling  of  the 
children  in  calisthenics,  and  all  the  machinery 
of  government,  from  a  chat  with  Mr.  Watanake, 
"President  de  la  cour  supreme,"  down  to  the 
thief  brought  in  to  the  police  station  the  night 
before.  All  this  means  a  tremendous,  drastic, 
and  disagreeable  change  for  the  Koreans. 

This  miserable  work-house  civilization  has 
been  turned  out  and  made  to  begin  earning  a 
living;  the  beggar  and  the  tramp  have  been  put 
to  work  at  the  wood-pile.  This  population  in 
their  baggy,  formless  white  clothing,  and  their 
horse-hair  stove-pipe  hats,  living  on  highly  sea- 
soned cabbage,  beans  and  rice;  and  wedded, 
men,  women  and  children,  to  their  tobacco-pipes 
as  are  no  other  people  in  the  world,  are  being 
prodded  and  pushed  by  their  energetic  conquer- 
ors into  some  sort  of  regularity  of  life  and  work. 
They  hate  it  all  as  a  tramp  hates  a  tread-mill. 
Prince  Ito,  the  Japanese  Lincoln,  was  assassi- 
nated by  one  of  them;  and  twenty-one  of  them 
were  awaiting  trial,  when  I  was  there,  for  an 
attempt  on  the  life  of  the  Prime  Minister,  in 
November,  1909. 

Korea  has  been  a  paradise  for  the  missionary. 
Nowhere  else  in  the  East  has  he  made  so  manv 


502       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

converts.  It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why. 
These  pliable,  indifferent  people,  too  lazy  to  de- 
fend themselves  from  the  extortion  and  tyranny 
of  their  ruler  and  his  horde  of  sycophant  cour- 
tiers, turned  to  the  missionaries;  and  where  the 
robbery  and  cruelty  were  too  flagrant  they  stood 
up  for  and  helped  their  converts.  The  Koreans 
leaned  back  upon  the  missionaries,  as  they 
would  have  leaned  back  upon  anybody  who 
would  support  the  burden  of  their  cowardice 
and  laziness. 

The  Koreans,  like  the  Chinese,  respect  the 
student,  the  man  of  the  book;  and  the  man  of 
the  book  everywhere  finds  it  easy  to  get  a  hear- 
ing. The  missionaries  rehabilitated  the  simple 
alphabetical  language,  which  the  Koreans  had 
spurned  as  the  "Dirty  Language."  After  four 
hundred  years  of  disuse,  this,  the  simplest  of  all 
the  Eastern  languages,  was  revived,  and  the 
Bible  printed  in  it,  and  the  Koreans  had  the 
New  Testament  to  read  as  their  first  book.  Un- 
like the  Japanese  and  the  Chinese,  the  Koreans 
were  without  a  religion  of  form  or  ceremonv,  and 
Christianity  supplied  that  need.  They  had  been 
Confucians  if  anything,  and  Confucianism  is  a 
mere  code  of  morals,  and  with  no  more  cere- 
monial than  the  Ten  Commandments.  The  mis- 
sionaries appealed   to  the  women   particularly. 


THINGS   JAPANESE  503 

They  had  been  kept  apart  and  secluded,  much 
as  are  the  women  of  India.  Their  religion  had 
been  a  form  of  Fetichism,  the  placating  of,  or 
the  fighting  against,  innumerable  evil  spirits. 
Women  were  allowed  to  go  to  church  by  their 
husbands,  and  grew  to  like  the  opportunities 
for  meeting  and  gossip.  The  word  ''gossip"  it- 
self means  a  sponsor  at  baptism.  The  women 
on  these  occasions,  by  their  chatter  and  spread- 
ing of  news,  gave  the  word  "gossip"  the  mean- 
ing it  now  holds  for  us.  Why  should  not  Ko- 
rean women  like  gossip  as  well  as  the  Germans, 
who  gave  the  word  its  present  significance?  I 
give  these  reasons  to  account  for  the  success  of 
the  missionaries  in  Korea,  because  it  is  entirely 
untrue  that  the  philosophy  or  the  morality  of 
Christianity  are  alone  responsible  for  the  situa- 
tion. On  the  contrary,  I  look  upon  it  as  any- 
thing but  a  compliment  to  Christianity  that  the 
most  contemptible  and  supine  race  in  the  East 
should  be,  of  all  others,  and  pre-eminently,  the 
race  most  attracted  to  Christianity.  Out  of 
regard  to  the  good  name  of  our  Western  creed, 
it  should  be  explained  that  the  tax-dodger,  the 
coward,  the  dependent,  the  shiftless,  the  bullied 
found  in  the  missionaries  protection  and  care; 
and  it  is  not  surprising  that  they  followed  and 
fawned  upon  them,  and  became  what  the  Chinese 


504        THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

call  "rice-Christians."  13e  it  said,  too,  that  the 
missionaries  deserve  every  credit  for  what  they 
have  done.  It  is  no  slur  upon  them  that  the 
morally  blind,  halt  and  lame  have  found  com- 
fort and  solace  and  protection  in  them.  It  is 
not,  however,  a  matter  for  boasting. 

In  Mr.  Gale's  church  I  attended  a  service 
where  seven  or  eight  hundred  Koreans  were 
present,  which  was  as  apparently  sincere,  rever- 
ent, and  enthusiastic  as  any  church  service  I 
have  ever  attended  anywhere.  Alas,  as  is  always 
the  case  with  great  missionaries  like  Xavier,  or 
Bishop  Brooks,  of  Massachusetts,  or  Bishop 
Hall,  of  Vermont,  and  other  great  spiritual 
leaders,  they  credit  their  followers  with  their 
own  devotion.  Gale  would  have  a  following 
anywhere,  from  the  Bowery,  in  New  York,  to  a 
bazaar  in  Baroda.  He  is  a  man,  that's  all;  and 
Korean  enthusiasm  and  piety  are  merely  his 
character. 

Now  that  the  Japanese  have  taken  over  not 
only  Korea,  and  its  taxes  and  administration, 
but  the  Koreans  and  their  affairs  as  well;  now 
that  the  taxation  is  fair  to  all  alike,  and  justice 
meted  out  to  all  alike;  now  that  the  Koreans  are 
finding  that  the  missionaries  cannot  defend  them 
from  the  Japanese,  as  they  defended  them  from 
the  extortions  of  their  former  rulers,  there  is  a 


THINGS   JAPANESE  50.5 

marked  lessening  of  enthusiasm  for  Christianity. 
The  murderer  of  Prince  Ito  Mas  a  Christian 
convert,  and  eighteeen  out  of  the  twenty-one 
who  made  the  attempt  on  the  life  of  the  Prime 
Minister  were  also  Christian  converts. 

It  is  a  difficult  situation  for  the  missionaries, 
for  any  effort  by  word  or  deed  to  improve  the 
Korean  may  be  twisted  into  meaning  encourage- 
ment of  his  hatred  of  the  Japanese.  It  is  hard 
indeed,  if  one  may  not  preach  to  men  to  be  men, 
and  independent  men,  without  being  suspected 
of  inciting  one's  hearers  to  sedition.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Japanese  might  well  take  excep- 
tion to  an  American  missionary,  who  publishes 
an  account  of  how  Prince  Min,  when  he  heard 
that  the  Japanese  were  in  control,  committed 
suicide,  and  concludes:  "Written  large  around 
his  name  Korea  will  ever  read  the  sentence, 
'Sweet  and  seemly  is  it  to  die  for  one's  father- 
land." No  American  missionary  should  be 
permitted  to  publish  such  incendiary  sentimen- 
tality. Do  Christians  believe  in  suicide!  Do 
Christians  believe  in  a  prince  who  has  shuffled 
and  twisted  and  shirked  and  brought  his  troubles 
on  himself  by  lazy  debauchery,  and  then  com- 
mits suicide!  No  state  department  in  any 
country  in  Europe,  or  in  .America,  can  defend 
such  glorification  of  a  mean-spirited  prince,  with 


506       THE    WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

its  evident  aim  to  show  sympathy  to  the  con- 
quered and  to  incite  to  wrong-doing  against  the 
conqueror.  What  would  we  do  in  Cuba,  or  in 
the  Philippines,  to  such  an  one  ?  I  am  not  de- 
fending the  Japanese,  but  they  are  quite  within 
bounds  if  they  suppress  such  talk  and  writing, 
and  that  with  a  heavy  hand;  and  no  honest 
American  would  have  a  word  to  say  against  it. 

The  Japanese,  and  it  is  one  of  his  best  traits, 
holds  self-control  in  the  highest  esteem.  A 
young  Japanese  noble  writes  in  his  diary: 
"Dost  thou  feel  the  soil  of  thy  soul  stirred  with 
tender  thoughts  ?  It  is  time  for  seeds  to  sprout. 
Disturb  it  not  with  speech;  but  let  it  work  alone 
in  quietness  and  secrecy."  Another  writes: 
"To  give  in  so  many  articulate  words  one's 
inmost  thoughts  and  feelings,  notably  the  re- 
ligious, is  taken  among  us  as  an  unmistakable 
sign  that  they  are  neither  very  profound  nor 
very  sincere.  Only  a  pomegranate  is,  he  who 
when  he  gapes  his  mouth  displays  the  contents 
of  his  heart."  The  blatant  and  voluble  Christian 
will  do  well  to  take  such  good  counsel  to  heart. 

I  admit  that  Japanese  domination  is  hard 
to  bear.  The  soldiers,  police,  and  lower  class 
Japanese  generally,  strut  and  swagger,  and  as 
I  have  written  already,  are  much  too  rough  in 
their  often  rude   and   unconciliatory  methods. 


THINGS   JAPANESE  507 

Not  a  single  day  passed  while  I  was  in  Korea 
and  Manchuria  that  I  did  not  see  Koreans 
and  Manchus  roughly  handled.  On  the  other 
hand,  from  the  director-general,  chief-justice, 
chief  of  police,  commissioner  of  education,  I 
heard  nothing  but  talk  and  plans  for  the  better 
government  of  Korea. 

At  Seoul,  the  director-general  invited  me  to 
a  dinner  of  some  twenty  prominent  officials. 
My  shoes  were  removed  at  the  door  of  the  res- 
taurant, and  in  my  stocking  feet  I  made  my 
bow  to  my  host  and  his  assembled  guests.  It 
was  a  test  of  one's  personal  dignity  and  urbanity ! 
We  sat  on  cushions  on  the  floor.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  room  but  a  single  bush  of 
azaleas,  which  wTas  placed  at  my  right  elbow. 
We  were  served,  and  entertained  with  singing 
and  dancing  and  conversation,  by  Japanese  and 
Korean  women.  The  long  scroll  with  the  names 
of  the  dishes  in  Japanese  and  in  English,  which 
is  before  me  as  I  write,  measures  just  one  inch 
short  of  five  feet,  and  includes  twenty-six  dif- 
ferent dishes.  I  may  not  give  the  entire  list. 
Some  of  the  dishes  were  "snipe  and  young 
ginger,"  "fish  and  sea-weed,"  "green  vegetables 
and  Japanese  soy,"  "eggs  (spawTn)  of  the  tai 
fish  and  edible  ferns,"  "lobsters  with  sweetened 
chestnuts,"    "red    bean    soup,"    "rice    cake," 


508       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

"cuttle-fish,"  "honey,"  "preserved  fruits."  The 
snipe  and  ginger,  the  red  bean  soup,  various 
dishes  of  eggs,  the  edible  ferns,  and  the  preserved 
fruits  were  excellent;  and  what  with  English, 
French,  and  a  little  German,  for  some  of  my 
fellow-guests  spoke  one  language,  some  another, 
the  conversational  ball  was  kept  rolling.  The 
men  were  all  intelligent,  all  interested  in  their 
work,  and  all  studiously  polite  to  the  only 
stranger  present.  Not  even  the  large  banquet 
in  Tokio,  where  I  met  the  Prime-Minister  and 
the  famous  General  Kuroki,  of  Yalu  River  fame, 
and  many  other  celebrities,  was  more  interesting. 
It  seemed  to  be  the  wish  of  the  Japanese  offi- 
cials that  I  should  see  evervthing;,  and  although 
the  intention  to  annex  Korea  was  denied,  while 
even  then  the  preparations  were  under  way,  I 
believe  it  is  not  the  habit  of  diplomats  and  offi- 
cials anywhere  to  play  the  pomegranate,  and 
open  the  mouth  so  freely  that  one  may  see  the 
contents  of  their  hearts. 

The  comfortable  route  for  those  going  from 
Japan  to  Moscow,  via  the  Trans-Siberian  rail- 
way, is  to  cross  the  Sea  of  Japan  from  Tsuruga 
to  Vladivostock,  where  the  train  starts;  or  one 
may  go  to  Dalny  (Port  Arthur)  and  take  a  train 
there  straight  to  Kharbin  and  join  the  train 
there;   or  one  may  go  all  the  way  by  train  from 


THINGS   JAPANESE  509 

Peking  to  Kharbin.  If  you  wish  to  see  the 
heart  of  the  Eastern  question  of  to-day,  however, 
you  will  cross  the  Yalu  River  on  the  northern 
border  of  Korea,  and  crawl  along  to  Mukden, 
on  what  remains  of  General  Kuroki's  crazy  little 
military  railway,  two  feet  six  inches  gauge,  and 
take  the  train  there  to  Kharbin. 

Leaving  Seoul  at  nine  in  the  morning,  I  ar- 
rived at  New  Wiju  at  a  little  after  eleven  at 
night.  In  order  to  be  sure  of  the  train  next 
morning,  a  Chinese  junk  was  hired  to  take  us 
across  the  Yalu  River,  and  the  night  was  spent 
in  a  Chinese  inn  at  Antung-Shien.  The  next 
morning  at  half-past  seven  we  bundled  into  a 
small  box-car  ten  feet  long,  five  feet  wide,  and 
seven  feet  high,  and  with  a  band  of  all  sorts, 
including  Chinese,  Manchus,  Japanese,  drawn 
by  a  diminutive  locomotive  engine  built,  I 
noticed,  by  the  Baldwin  Locomotive  Company, 
we  started. 

I  still  look  back  upon  that  journey  with  sur- 
prise and  gratitude.  The  railway  is  of  the 
portable  kind  that  can  be  laid  quickly,  and 
there  is  no  pretence  of  permanency;  on  the  con- 
trary, there  were  ominous  and  frequent  indica- 
tions of  a  tendency  to  disappear  entirely.  The 
embankments  are  hastily  thrown  up,  the  bridges 
are  of  logs  loosely  spiked  together,  and  when 


510       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

one  gets  a  glimpse  of  the  line  from  the  car- 
window,  it  looks  like  a  ribbon  carelessly  thrown 
across  valleys,  beside  streams,  and  around  moun- 
tains. Often  it  seemed  that  we  should  roll 
backward  down  a  mountain,  or  that  a  shakv 
bridge  would  give  a  last  shake  and  let  us  through 
into  a  torrent  below ;  but  the  doughty  little  loco- 
motive puffed,  and  wheezed,  and  grunted,  and 
pulled  us  along  somehow.  I  saw  forests  that 
mean  a  fortune,  miles  and  miles  of  arable  lands 
that  mean  food,  and  I  was  told  of  mines  of  cop- 
per and  coal.  We  hardly  travelled  as  fast  as  a 
well-horsed  road  coach;  we  stopped  wherever 
there  was  a  passenger;  we  picked  up  and  de- 
posited all  sorts  of  freight;  the  seats  were  of 
wood  with  no  cushions;  and  when,  as  happened 
from  time  to  time,  there  were  nine  Japanese  or 
Chinese  packed  in  the  small  carriage  with  me, 
the  situation  was  uncomfortable. 

On  such  a  crazy  little  line  there  is  no  travel  at 
night,  and  at  sunset  we  halt  at  Sokakua  and 
spend  the  night  in  another  Manchurian  inn. 
All  through  China  and  Japan,  and  wherever 
Japanese  influence  extends,  you  can  get  a  hot 
bath,  and  at  these  resting-places  I  tumbled  into 
a  hot  bath  and  out,  and  into  bed;  and  one  is  too 
tired  to  know  whether  one  is  uncomfortable  or 
not. 


THINGS   JAPANESE  511 

Thirty  miles  from  Mukden  we  reach  Sakyoshi, 
where  the  broad-gauge  road  has  arrived  on  its 
way  to  the  Yalu  River.  To  change  into  a  car 
of  average  size,  and  to  move  along  at  average 
speed,  and  to  have  a  seat  all  to  oneself,  seemed 
the  height  of  luxurious  travel.  It  is  like  the 
change  into  a  smoothly  driven  carriage,  on  a 
good  road,  from  a  jaunting-car  in  Tipperary,  in 
rainy  weather,  with  a  broken-down  thorough- 
bred between  the  shafts,  and  a  casual  Irishman 
handling  the  reins. 

Even  the  dirty  hotel  in  Mukden,  to  which  we 
are  driven  by  a  yelling  Manchu,  over  roads  of 
mud  and  negligently  placed  boulders,  seemed  a 
haven  of  rest  after  that  railway  journey,  which  I 
may  safely  say  is  the  worst  railway  journey  in 
the  world.  Mukden  is  an  old  Tartar  town, 
surrounded  by  a  high  wall,  with  wide  gateways 
and  watch-towers.  The  population  consists  of 
some  250,000,  including  5,000  Japanese,  and 
about  150  Europeans.  The  Manchus,  both 
men  and  women,  are  stalwart-looking  people; 
and  the  women,  with  their  coarsely  dyed  cheeks, 
and  the  mirrors  glittering  in  their  carefully  and 
intricately  dressed  hair,  are  as  independent,  as 
they  walk  the  streets,  as  the  men.  Mukden  was 
the  capital  of  the  Manchu  dynasty  until  the  Man- 
chus marched  west  and  conquered  Peking.  Even 


512       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

now  the  palace  is  kept  open,  and  in  some  sort 
of  repair,  and  there  is  a  complete  equipment  of 
officials.  The  present  administration  is  in  the 
hands  of  a  governor-general,  who  is  also  the 
military  governor.  Eight  months  after  my  visit 
the  plague  played  havoc  in  Mukden  and  the 
surrounding  country.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at.  Within  these  walls  live  a  quarter  of  a  million 
people,  disdaining  all  sanitary  precautions,  the 
streets  deep  in  mud  or  dust,  the  shops  and 
houses  crowded  together  so  that  one  might  walk 
from  roof  to  roof,  and  the  contents  of  the  shops, 
and  of  the  open  booths  which  line  the  streets, 
exposed  to  the  flying  dust.  They  are  a  noisy 
lot  too,  and  from  dawn  till  night  the  raucous 
and  piercing  cries  of  the  peddlers  through  the 
streets,  the  rumbling  of  the  heavy  Pekinese 
carts,  the  chatter  of  the  crowds,  make  the  place 
a  very  bedlam. 

Escorted  by  the  Japanese  military  attache,  I 
was  shown  the  palace  buildings  and  the  tombs 
of  the  founders  of  the  Manchu  dynasty.  The 
palace  buildings  are  empty,  and  the  grounds  neg- 
lected, though  there  is  a  small  army  of  Manchu 
soldiers,  police,  and  servants  about.  The  beau- 
tifully lacquered  walls  and  floors,  the  roofs  of 
many-colored  tiles;  and  many  treasures,  such  as 
jewelled   weapons   and  richly  embroidered  gar- 


THINGS   JAPANESE  513 

ments,  red  lacquer  ware,  carved  ivory,  jade  and 
bronze,  are  still  to  be  seen.  I  was  told  by  a 
friend,  recently  from  Peking,  that  the  buildings 
here  were  as  elaborate  as  those  in  Peking.  To 
us,  with  our  test  of  comfort,  palaces  whether  in 
Japan,  China,  or  Korea  look  barren,  cold  and 
stiff,  however  clean  and  polished  and  delicately 
ornamented  they  may  be. 

Much  more  elaborate  are  the  tombs  of  these 
gentry  than  were  their  homes.  A  broad  avenue 
paved  with  large  blocks  of  stone,  and  lined  on 
each  side  with  huge  lions,  horses,  elephants,  and 
griffins  in  stone,  leads  to  the  tombs,  with  their 
pagoda-roofs,  the  edges  tilted  up,  as  though 
architecture  had  taken  to  the  foppery  of  brushing 
up  the  ends  of  its  mustaches.  In  one  of  them 
was  a  stone  tortoise  of  enormous  size,  on  which 
was  a  tablet  with  the  virtues  and  accomplish- 
ments of  the  deceased  graven  thereon. 

The  next  day  I  attended  a  banquet  given  in 
honor  of  the  anniversary  of  the  Japanese  Red 
Cross  Society.  We  assembled  in  an  anteroom, 
Japanese  officers  and  officials,  the  Manchu 
governor  of  the  province,  mandarins  in  their 
short  coats  with  long  sleeves,  and  their  bell- 
shaped  helmets  with  different-colored  horse-hair 
plumes,  and  there  we  were  served  with  tea  and 
cigarettes,    and    made    profound    bows    to    one 


514       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

another.  Later  we  marched  out  in  procession 
to  the  music  of  a  really  first-rate  Chinese  brass 
band,  through  a  crowd  of  five  or  six  hundred 
guests.  On  a  raised  platform,  with  some  ten 
Chinese  and  Japanese  officials,  I  sat,  looking, 
I  trust,  as  solemn  as  they.  There  followed 
speeches,  the  Manchu  governor  lifting  his  robes 
and  taking  his  manuscript  out  of  his  right  boot- 
leg when  he  was  called  upon;  and  there  was 
much  applauding  and  much  shouting  of  Ban- 
zais.  After  this  we  sat  down  at  long  tables  to  a 
luncheon,  supplied  with  dozens  of  dishes,  some 
of  them  very  elaborate,  and  accompanied  with 
generous  amounts  of  champagne.  We  had  been 
at  it  for  three  hours  when  the  real  performance 
began,  with  dancing  and  sword-play  and  sing- 
ing on  a  stage  in  front  of  us.  It  was  evident  that 
the  governor  was  bored  by  these  rather  tepid 
amusements,  and  even  I  was  but  mildly  inter- 
ested. He  called  an  officer  to  his  side,  who 
thereupon  whispered  a  word  in  the  ear  of  the 
Japanese  presiding  officer,  and  to  my  horror, 
but  to  my  intense  relief,  he  arose  in  the  middle 
of  the  performance,  and  followed  by  his  officers 
and  attendants,  stalked  out  of  the  grounds,  got 
into  his  carriage,  and  left.  With  admiration  for 
his  coolness  and  courage,  I  turned  my  back  upon 
the  Japanese  performer  on  the  stage  who  was 


THINGS   JAPANESE  515 

just  then  standing  upon  one  leg,  holding  fans  in 
her  teeth,  her  hair,  her  hands,  and  between  her 
toes,  and  followed  the  yellow  gentleman  out.  It 
was  all  done  quietly,  with  dignity  arid  ease;  and 
the  Japanese  bowing  and  scraping  as  he  left, 
made  him  appear  all  the  more  the  gentleman  of 
the  occasion. 

That  night,  on  a  sleeping-car  built  by  the 
Pullman  Company,  drawn  by  a  locomotive  built 
by  the  American  Locomotive  Company,  I  left 
Mukden  for  Kharbin.  In  the  dining-car  the 
next  morning  I  had  a  capital  breakfast.  At 
Chang-Chung,  where  we  arrived  at  6  a.  m.,  the 
Japanese  control  of  the  railway  line  ends  and 
the  Russian  control  begins.  At  eleven  o'clock 
the  Russian  train  with  Russian  soldiers,  guards, 
and  conductors  rolled  into  the  station.  The 
Russians  looked  enormous,  as  they  stepped  off 
the  train,  beside  the  Japanese  officials  from  the 
other  train.  One  of  them  carried  a  sword  as 
long  as  the  Japanese  station-master.  After  these 
many  months  I  was  in  the  hands  of  white 
men  again.  It  is  hard  to  explain  or  describe 
the  positive  delight  one  experiences.  I  can  only 
say  I  was  tempted  to  shake  hands  with  them  all. 
At  half-past  eight  that  night  we  arrived  at  Khar- 
bin.  They  call  Kharbin  the  Paris  of  the  East! 
It  only  shows  how  completely  the  point  of  view 


516       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

dictates  opinions.  The  streets  are  badly  paved, 
the  mud  thick  and  mucilaginous;  the  hotel, 
except  for  the  redeeming  feature  of  the  fresh 
caviare,  dirty  and  uncomfortable;  but  it  is  a 
white  man's  town! 

The  houses  and  shops  are  solidly  built  of 
stone  and  brick,  the  permanent  buildings  are 
for  the  living,  not  exclusively  for  the  dead;  the 
horses  gallop  and  trot;  the  men  gesticulate, 
and  their  display  of  energy  and  go  in  fifteen 
minutes  would  be  exercise  enough  for  an  Indian, 
a  Korean,  or  a  Japanese  for  a  month.  They 
drink  vodka  and  eat  meat,  and  the  physical  ex- 
travagance, after  the  listless  physical  economy 
to  which  I  was  becoming  accustomed,  is  like  a 
breath  of  fresh  air.  There  are  dancing  and 
singing  and  clinking  of  glasses  and  bursts  of 
laughter  in  the  cafe  chantant  in  the  hotel 
restaurant  in  the  evening;  men  shake  hands 
heartily  and  slap  one  another  across  the  shoul- 
ders; applaud  loudly  the  rather  poor  perform- 
ances on  the  stage,  but  they  are  alive  and  like  it! 
I  am  alive  too,  and  I  like  it.  I  like  the  ups  and 
downs  of  it;  the  strain  and  stress  of  it;  the  dis- 
appointments and  the  surprises;  the  laughter, 
and  the  love,  and  the  hearty  friendships;  and 
the  enmities  and  the  prejudices,  and  the  blows 
given  and  received;   the  triumphs  and  disasters; 


THINGS   JAPANESE  517 

the  frank  pushing  and  battling  to  get  the  most 
out  of  life;  the  detestation  of  death  and  decay. 
I  do  not  want  the  legions  to  thunder  past  while 
I  plunge  in  thought  again.  I  want  to  thunder 
past  with  the  legions.  Let  the  milksop  tell  you 
that  there  should  be  no  racial  prejudices,  no 
patriotism,  no  exclusive  love  of  your  own,  no 
radical  and  profound  belief  that  the  world  be- 
longs to  those  who  take  it,  and  that  you  are  one 
of  the  takers;  that  there  is  no  East,  no  West; 
but  the  moment  you  step  across  the  line  between 
the  East  and  the  West,  you  shake  yourself,  rub 
your  eyes,  and  find  yourself  the  West's  own 
child  again. 

It  was  ten  days  across  Siberia  from  Kharbin 
to  Moscow,  and  I  suppose  the  journey  is  slow 
and  tedious.  Indeed  that  question  has  been 
put  to  me  more  often  than  any  other  perhaps; 
"How  was  the  trans-Siberian  journey?"  I 
dare  not  answer.  To  me  it  was  comfortable 
and  exciting,  for  I  was  on  my  way  home! 


CONCLUSION 

A  YEAR  in  the  Far  East  has  not  converted 
me  to  any  belief  in  my  own  omniscience. 
These  sketches  of  conditions  there,  are 
intended  to  furnish  material  to  my  countrymen 
for  drawing  their  own  conclusions,  as  I  have 
drawn  mine. 

First  of  all  we  must  rid  ourselves  of  the  as- 
sumption that  we  are  called  upon  to  impose  our 
religious  and  moral  codes  upon  the  East,  if  need 
be  by  an  armed  crusade;  and  to  follow  this  by 
dictating  to  the  East  the  commercial  and  mili- 
tary lines  along  which  they  shall  be  permitted  to 
develop.  The  days  of  the  missionary-cwm-gun- 
boat  policy  have  gone  by.  They  have  gone  by, 
not  because  the  Western  lust  for  the  land  and 
trade  of  the  East  has  lessened,  but  because  the 
East  has  grown  strong  enough  to  put  a  stop  to  it. 
We  were  not  converted  to  charity  toward  the 
East  by  obedience  to  the  tenets  of  our  religion, 
but  by  Kuroki's  guns  at  the  Yalu  River.  Let  us 
be  frank  and  admit  it.  The  East  scents  some- 
thing more  than  mere  religious  fervor  in  our  solic- 
itude for  their  moral  and  religious  welfare,  and 

518 


CONCLUSION  519 

notes  that  more  leagues  of  territory  have  been 
taken  from  her  than  leagues  of  progress  have 
been  made  in  converting  her.  The  assumption 
of  moral  superiority  has  been  accompanied  by  a 
very  commercial  demand  for  payment,  not  in  the 
things  of  the  spirit,  but  in  the  things  of  the  flesh. 
"Doth  the  wild  ass  bray,  when  he  hath  grass?" 
The  only  book  every  Westerner  knows  is  an 
Eastern  book.  Eastern  from  cover  to  cover. 
Eastern  in  its  modes  of  thought,  Eastern  in  its 
images,  Eastern  in  its  belief  in  autocracy,  East- 
ern in  its  belief  in  the  subordination  of  women, 
Eastern  in  its  occasional  pictures  of  gross  im- 
morality, Eastern  in  its  lazy  gentleness,  Eastern 
in  its  unconscious  cruelty.  The  West  accepts  the 
Bible  as  its  best  literature.  Even  in  the  matter 
of  material  possessions,  the  East  is  still  our 
teacher,  and  those  Orientals,  the  Jews,  are  our 
most  powerful  bankers.  The  enlightened  among 
the  Orientals,  therefore,  and  though  they  be  few 
in  numbers,  they  rule,  claim  that  they  have 
given  us  enough  to  prove  that  along  spiritual 
lines  they  are  not  in  our  debt;  and  further,  that 
their  consent  should  be  asked  before  we  force 
them  to  accept  the  mechanical  and  material 
mould  we  call  progress.  We  have  assumed 
superiority  because  we  could  enforce  it;  our 
superiority  has  not  won  its  way  by  conversion 


520       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

along  peaceful  lines.  Japan  was  driven  to  mar- 
tialism  to  defend  herself  from  China,  then  from 
Russia,  and  then  from  the  demands  of  all  Eu- 
rope and  America  for  extra-territoriality  for  their 
citizens. 

If  we  take  the  high  moral  ground,  therefore, 
that  we  must  force  our  code  upon  them  by  foul 
means  or  fair,  they  ask  why  we  do  not  first  con- 
vert the  agnostics  of  France  and  Italy,  the  so- 
cialists of  Germany,  and  the  avowed  unbelievers 
in  those  countries  and  in  America  and  the  British 
Empire.  Further  they  make  reply,  that  a  cen- 
tury of  effort  along  those  lines  has  accomplished 
practically  nothing.  India,  China  and  Japan 
are  no  more  at  heart  Christian  to-day  than  an 
hundred  years  ago ;  and  they  claim  that  the  first 
light  of  equality  and  fair-play  came  to  them 
from  the  flashing  sword  of  Japan.  The  sword, 
not  the  cross,  delivered  them. 

They  recall  that  privileges  were  extended  to 
the  missionaries  in  China  by  a  contemptible  ad- 
dition, surreptitiously  made,  to  a  French  treaty, 
and  signed  by  the  Chinese  before  it  was  discov- 
ered. They  recognize  that  we  would  not  per- 
mit a  Confucian  teacher  to  rail  against  religion; 
a  Shinto  priest  to  spread  his  doctrine  of  "Fol- 
low your  natural  impulses  and  obey  the  Mikado's 
decrees";   a  Hindu  prophet  of  Sivaji  to  foment 


CONCLUSION  521 

discord  among  us  in  the  West ;  and  we  shall  find 
as  time  goes  on,  and  as  extra-territorial  privileges 
lessen,  as  they  have  ceased  entirely  in  Japan,  that 
we  shall  be  more  and  more  held  to  account  for 
the  doings  and  preachments  of  our  missionaries. 

I  mean  this  not  in  the  least  as  derogatory  to 
the  work  of  these  men  and  women,  for  I  know 
of  nothing  more  courageous,  patient  and  self- 
sacrificing  than  the  work  some  of  them  are  doing. 
I  mean  merely  that  the  East  is  growing  strong 
enough  to  resent  dictation  upon  this  or  any  other 
subject.  Now  that  they  are  strong  enough  to 
make  their  resentment  dangerous,  we  can  no 
longer  force  ourselves  upon  them.  In  our  at- 
titude toward  the  East  we  must  take  up  new 
ground;  as  the  strategists  say,  take  other  posi- 
tions. Our  authority  and  superiority  are  no 
longer  to  be  taken  for  granted. 

It  is  a  pretty  problem,  this,  of  our  suddenly 
altered  relations  with  the  East.  The  chief  diffi- 
culty lies  in  the  fact  that  our  great  democracies 
of  the  West  must  necessarily  be  governed  by  the 
uneducated,  the  superficial,  and  the  untra veiled. 
Nothing  is  haughtier  than  savage  ignorance, 
nothing  more  opinionated  than  racial  prejudice, 
nothing  more  difficult  to  deal  with  than  that 
narrow  uprightness  which  expresses  itself  in 
downrightness.     In   our  domestic  affairs  these 


522       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

things  rub  against  one  another,  and  the  angles 
of  difficulty  are  smoothed  out,  and  in  spite  of 
many  hitches  and  some  disasters,  the  people 
work  out  their  salvation  without  thought  of  war, 
at  any  rate. 

But  as  a  nation  dealing  with  another  nation, 
the  way  to  the  solution  of  such  problems  is  more 
delicate  and  more  difficult.  We  are  apt  to  fall 
into  the  error  of  choosing  as  our  representatives 
to  other  countries,  either  men  who  demand  office 
for  services  to  a  party,  or  men  whom  we  think 
will  hustle  the  East  for  trade  privileges.  One 
is  as  bad  and  as  provocative  to  misunderstand- 
ing as  the  other.  The  trade  ends  should  be 
in  the  hands  of  professional  traders,  but  the 
diplomatic  representation  ought  to  be  in  the 
hands  of  the  cultivated  and  of  the  intellectually 
enfranchised;  those  who  believe,  with  Goethe, 
that  "to  know  the  world  and  not  to  despise  it  is 
the  end  and  aim  of  culture."  It  is  hard  to  make 
the  business  West  understand  that  this  is  the 
type  of  man  most  respected,  better  understood 
and  of  more  value  to  us,  than  any  other  in  the 
East,  where  they  are  suffering,  not  as  the  un- 
travelled  believe,  from  ignorance,  but  from  over- 
cultivation.  Much  that  is  new  to  us  is  old  to 
them.  One  nation  cannot  know  another  as  a 
nation  knows  itself,  and  unless  the  few  who  do 


CONCLUSION  523 

know  other  nations  are  heeded  when  they  ad- 
vise, the  suburban  sages,  by  their  stiff  self- 
satisfaction  and  their  profound  ignorance  of, 
and  contempt  for,  any  basis  for  society  except 
their  own,  may  make  amicable  relations  dif- 
ficult. The  ultimate  decision,  even  of  great 
questions  of  international  policy,  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  voters  in  the  West.  The  overwhelming 
majority  of  these  know  nothing  of  history,  and 
have  no  historical  perspective ;  they  know  noth- 
ing of  the  traditions  and  prejudices  of  the  East, 
they  are  contented  with  the  sheltered  snobbery  of 
suburban  sectarianism,  and  they  are,  to  a  man, 
persuaded,  as  a  consequence  of  this,  that  any 
civilization  other  than  their  own  is  unworthy  even 
of  investigation. 

The  difference  between  the  way  in  which 
Western  peoples  as  a  whole  represent  the  East 
to  themselves,  and  the  real  East,  is  much  like 
the  difference  between  the  "Faust"  of  Gounod 
and  the  real  "Faust"  of  Goethe.  The  one  is 
melodrama  for  the  mob,  the  other  is  philosophy 
understood  by  a  small  minority.  The  one  is  all 
tears  and  terror  and  namby-pamby  morality, 
gesticulated  and  shrieked  by  an  obese  soprano, 
with  a  traditional  braid  of  straw-colored  hair 
down  her  back,  and  a  bulky  tenor;  the  other  is 
a  subtle  analysis  of  the  most  puzzling  contradic- 


5U       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

tions  in  human  life.  In  the  one  the  devil,  all  in 
red,  with  hoofs  and  horns  and  tail  all  plainly 
showing,  is  a  silly  tempter,  invented  by  a  cos- 
tume-maker; in  the  other,  Mephistopheles  is  a 
shadowy  metaphysical  creation,  who  remains  to 
this  day  one  of  the  unsolved  mysteries  of  litera- 
ture. The  West  pictures  the  East  as  an  easily 
understood  Marguerite;  only  a  few  know  that 
the  East  is  Faust. 

There  was  no  danger  in  this  attitude  in  the 
past  —  unless  it  be  always  dangerous  to  be  a  com- 
placent fool  —  because  we  were  too  strong  to  be 
punished  for  our  folly.  Our  self-righteous  in- 
eptitude was  safe.  This  is  no  longer  the  case. 
I  am  no  believer  in  the  folly  of  the  day  that  Japan 
proposes  to  attack  us  immediately;  but  I  can 
assure  my  countrymen  that  we  should  have  a  job 
on  our  hands  which  would  tax  us  to  the  utmost, 
did  we  undertake  to  punish  Japan  for  a  slight  to 
our  dignity.  In  a  word,  the  relations  between 
East  and  West  have  changed. 

Hitherto  the  Eastern  problem  for  the  white 
races  has  been  merely  a  consideration  of  how 
much  territory  they  would  take;  how  much  in- 
demnity they  would  demand ;  how  much  of  their 
ethical  code  and  religious  preferences  they  would 
impose;  and  what  demands  they  would  make 
for  the  commercial  and  industrial  security  and 


CONCLUSION  525 

activities  of  men  of  their  own  race  in  the  East. 
Now  the  problem  is  slowly  shaping  itself  to  mean : 
how  much  must  we  give  in  return  for  what  we 
take;  and  how  can  we  arrange  matters  to  keep 
the  East  out  of  the  West,  while  at  the  same  time 
securing  free  access  for  the  West  in  the  East. 

We  in  America,  for  example,  declare  that  the 
whole  southern  half  of  the  western  hemisphere, 
an  enormous  tract  of  valuable  land,  thinly  popu- 
lated, is  within  our  sphere  of  influence,  and  not 
open  to  Chinese,  Indian,  or  Japanese  settlers; 
at  the  same  time  we  ridicule  the  talk  of  war. 
Can  anything  be  more  deplorably  self-satisfied, 
ignorant  and  illogical!  Even  that  most  peace- 
able of  men,  George  Herbert,  knew,  and  wrote: 
"You  cannot  get  beyond  danger  without  danger." 

I  am  not  a  pleader  nor  an  advocate.  I  have 
attempted  in  this  volume  merely  to  give  material 
for  a  readjustment  of  our  views  of  the  East;  but 
I  defy  any  American  to  show  me  how  we  can 
get  beyond  the  danger  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
how  we  can  get  beyond  the  dangers  of  persistent, 
and  often  aggravating,  attempts  to  impose  our  re- 
ligious and  moral  codes  upon  an  indifferent  and 
suspicious  Eastern  population,  without  the  dan- 
ger of  a  powerful  navy.  Not  even  Yankee  in- 
genuity can  get  beyond  danger  without  danger! 
Our  selfish,  thoroughly  un-Christian  and  topsy- 


526       THE   WEST  IN  THE  EAST 

turvy  logic,  which  preaches  peace  in  India,  China, 
Japan  and  Korea,  and  then  proclaims  dire  pun- 
ishment upon  any  one  who  attempts  to  share  in 
the  opportunities  of  the  golden  West,  has  gone 
unchallenged  thus  far,  only  because  we  were 
too  powerful  to  be  taken  to  task.  But  this  is 
''exposing  the  unguarded  heel"  indeed! 

The  almost  universal  belief  in  the  West,  that 
we  are  admired,  envied,  and  looked  upon  as 
superior  by  the  East,  and  that  our  type  of  civi- 
lization is  the  goal  toward  which  the  East  is 
striving,  is  not  only  ludicrously  false,  but  is  at 
the  bottom  of  our  misunderstanding  of  the  whole 
situation.  No  Indian  prince,  no  Chinese  manda- 
rin, no  Korean  courtier,  no  Japanese  noble  en- 
vies, admires,  or  looks  upon  us  individually  or 
nationally  as  superior.  As  for  the  masses  of  the 
people,  their  attitude  is  a  mixture  of  dislike  and 
contempt. 

Do  we  not  see  the  existing  differences  between 
Germans  and  Frenchmen,  between  the  English 
and  the  Irish;  even  in  our  own  country,  differ- 
ences between  the  man  from  New  England  and 
the  man  from  South  Carolina,  and  the  cleavage 
between  the  negro  and  the  white  man  ?  Why 
not  apply  the  rules  we  do  know  to  the  peoples 
we  do  not  know  ? 

These  natural  racial  antagonisms  are  planted 


CONCLUSION  527 

in  us,  for  what  purpose  we  know  not,  and  they 
are  hard  for  the  best  of  us  to  overcome.  We 
may  have  personal  friends  who  are  Indian, 
Chinese,  Japanese  —  I  now  have  many,  I  am 
glad  to  say  —  but  we  should  not  like  our  sisters 
and  daughters  to  marry  them.  Turn  this  the 
other  way,  and  we  have  the  attitude  of  the  East 
toward  the  West.  Eight  hundred  millions  of 
people  in  the  East  either  ignore  us  or  suspect  us 
and  dislike  us,  and  when  I  write  "us"  I  mean 
the  whole  West.  There  are,  of  course,  a  minute 
few  who  speak  and  understand  a  European  lan- 
guage, and  who  have  travelled,  but  they  are 
least  of  all  converted  to  our  ways  or  our  ideals. 
They  admit  our  superiority  in  one  respect  only: 
that  we  can  throw  bigger  broadsides  of  lead  and 
iron;  that  we  can  spend  more  on  gunpowder 
and  dynamite;  and  that  we  are  better  organized, 
martially  and  commercially,  than  they  are.  The 
Japanese  war  with  Russia  has  led  them  to  believe 
that  even  this  superiority  is  open  to  question, 
and  passing,  not  permanent. 

Of  our  great  divisions  of  peoples,  the  Russians 
are  the  most  sympathetic  to  them,  the  English 
the  most  respected,  the  Germans  most  distrusted 
(particularly  in  Japan),  the  Americans  the  least 
known  and  considered,  in  the  East. 

British  rule  in  India  is  the  greatest  blessing 


528       THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

and  the  most  splendid  service  ever  rendered  to 
one  people  by  a  stranger  nation.  Unrest  is  not 
new  in  India.  Many  people  seem  to  think  that 
there  were  peace  and  harmonious  interests  in 
India  before  the  British  took  control.  The 
readers  of  these  pages  will  discover  this  error. 
The  continuous  unrest  of  centuries  is  only  now 
whipped  anew  into  froth  by  a  subtle  use  of  re- 
ligious and  racial  prejudice,  in  order  to  stiffen 
the  demand  of  India  for  the  Indians;  the  real 
meaning  of  which  is  India  policed  by  the  British, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Brahman  hierarchy  and 
the  Babu. 

There  are  no  signs  to-day  that  India  can  of 
itself  throw  off  or  rid  itself  from  British  rule. 
That  may  come,  but  only  through  the  moral 
and  political  demoralization  of  the  British  at 
home;  and  a  war  which  will  so  engage  her 
whole  strength  that  she  cannot  hold  India  from 
a  combined  attack  from  the  outside,  assisted  by 
the  Indians  inside.  Even  that  calamity  would 
only  mean  India  controlled  by  Russia  or  Japan, 
or  by  some  arrangement  between  them  for  a 
sphere  of  influence  there.  India  is  no  more  for 
the  Indians,  than  is  Korea  for  the  Koreans,  for 
ages  to  come. 

There  is  greater  danger  to  the  present  benev- 
olent control  of  India  from  London  than  from 


CONCLUSION  529 

Bengal.  If  political  socialism  is  to  have  control, 
with  its  doctrine  broadly  stated  that  all  success 
is  per  se  suspect  and  personal  prowess  to  be  re- 
warded with  no  quarter,  then  we  shall  all  be 
delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  Yellow  Peril  and 
the  Brown  Peril. 

I  have  dealt  at  some  length  upon  the  situation 
and  conditons  in  India,  because  British  predomi- 
nance in  the  East  is,  after  all,  our  first  Eastern 
question.  Great  Britain  saved  us  from  our  great- 
est danger  in  our  war  with  Spain,  by  declining 
to  listen  to  overtures,  made  to  her  by  the  Euro- 
pean powers,  to  intervene  in  behalf  of  Spain. 
Our  lamentable  unreadiness  and  blundering, 
were  only  saved  from  disaster  by  the  weakness 
of  our  foe.  Had  Europe  demanded  that  we 
cease  firing  and  submit  the  matter  at  issue  to  an 
European  court,  we  would  have  been  as  impo- 
tent to  refuse  such  an  order  as  was  Japan  after 
her  war  with  China,  when  all  the  spoils  were 
taken  from  her. 

Japan  learned  her  lesson,  and  in  ten  years 
made  herself  strong  enough  on  land  and  sea  to 
take  again,  and  to  keep,  the  Liao-tung  peninsula 
and  southern  Manchuria.  For  years  to  come, 
even  at  the  breakneck  speed  she  is  working 
now,  the  control,  settlement,  and  exploitation  of 
this  new  territory  will  absorb  all  her  energies. 


530        THE   WEST   IN  THE   EAST 

Nothing  but  some  almost  unthinkable  affront  to 
her  dignity  from  our  unwary  national  ignorance 
can  divert  her  attention  to  us.  She  has  nothing 
to  fear  from  us.  She  is  beating  us  out  in  the 
race  for  the  Pacific  carrying  trade,  and  she  will 
soon  have  all  the  machinery  for  a  similar  suprem- 
acy in  China.  I  am  not  a  believer  in  the  per- 
manent achievements  and  control  of  any  Eastern 
race ;  and  I  find  no  arguments  except  of  a  hypo- 
thetical sort  to  bolster  up,  much  less  to  prove, 
such  a  thesis;  but  I  am  bound  to  admit  that 
Japan,  whether  permanently  or  not,  has  become 
a  factor  to  be  considered  in  all  international 
problems  of  the  day. 

China  is  far  more  puzzling  than  either  India 
or  Japan.  The  Chinese  are  the  independent, 
virile,  and  mentally  superior  race  in  all  the  East. 
To  the  Westerner  it  is  inconceivable  that  power 
should  not  wish  to  express  itself,  that  ability 
should  not  wish  to  proclaim  itself,  that  force 
should  not  wish  to  stamp  its  will  on  others.  It 
is  just  because  the  Chinese  are  the  most  Ori- 
ental of  the  Orientals,  the  stanchest  believers 
in  themselves,  that  this  fitness  to  prevail,  and 
this  inertia,  exist  side  by  side. 

The  East  is  spiritual,  the  West  secular.  The 
East  still  obeys  spiritual  beliefs,  the  West  obeys 
only  so   far  as  it  is  convenient  and  consistent 


CONCLUSION  531 

with  personal  independence  and  comfort.  In 
the  West  secular  law  is  above  the  Church,  in 
the  East  spiritual  faith  is  above  the  law.  The 
West  looks  forward  to  personal  consciousness 
even  after  death,  as  witnessed  by  our  belief  in 
immortality;  the  East  seeks  loss  of  conscious- 
ness, and  looks  upon  reincarnations  as  punish- 
ments. The  East  abhors  impersonal  law  and 
its  cold  neutrality,  and  loves  personal  autocratic 
rule.  Most  of  the  best  things  of  the  West  — 
honesty,  justice,  mercy,  impartiality  and  sym- 
pathy —  the  East  dislikes,  and  would  rather  be 
without. 

The  East  is  fatigued  and  disgusted  by  the 
rules,  demands,  exigencies  of  the  social  inter- 
course of  the  West.  To  be  on  time,  to  answer 
letters,  to  pay  visits,  to  dress  at  certain  times,  and 
in  a  certain  manner,  to  be  severely  accurate  in 
money  matters,  to  do  day  after  day  certain  pre- 
scribed duties,  the  Oriental  shrinks  from  as  from 
slavery;  and  even  though  persistent  painstaking 
bring  prosperity,  he  will  not  drive  himself  that 
far.  This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the  East 
submits  to  cruelty,  to  conquest,  flood,  and  famine, 
to  being  trampled  to  death  by  elephants,  buried 
alive  in  a  wall,  cut  to  pieces  while  alive,  and  to 
infanticide  on  a  colossal  scale.  He  will  exert 
himself  tremendously  on  occasion,  he  will  fasten 


532       THE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

his  will  'upon  some  object  of  vengeance  or  pos- 
session, and  hang  on  till  death;  but  he  must  be 
free  to  choose  his  own  time  and  place.  Regu- 
larity seems  to  him,  of  all  things,  the  worst 
tyranny.  His  patience  is  monumental,  because 
his  whole  creed  and  philosophy  of  life  teach 
that  what  he  wants  must  come,  and  that  it  is 
better  to  wait  for  it  than  to  strive  for  it.  I  be- 
lieve the  power  of  accomplishment  throughout 
the  East,  and  particularly  in  China,  is  tremen- 
dous ;  but  they  will  not  exercise  it  at  the  cost  of 
mechanical  persistence.  Symptoms  of  a  similar 
kind  we  find  in  our  own  race.  Men  capable  of 
the  most  tremendous  mental  and  moral  labor 
seem  to  be  mentally  and  physically  torpid  at 
times.  They  shrink  from  any  exertion  whatever 
as  from  pain.  I  see  no  signs  that  these  broad 
differences  are  lessening.  Japan  whipped  into 
exertion  by  maltreatment  has  armed  herself,  but 
even  Japan  rests  what  she  has  accomplished 
upon  quite  other  moral  and  religious  sanctions 
than  ours. 

What,  then,  is  to  be  our  attitude;  what  the  re- 
sults of  the  increasing  intercourse  between  West 
and  East?  Either  the  English  and  the  Ameri- 
cans, to  speak  only  of  our  own  case,  believe  their 
own  civilization  is  superior  to  that  of  the  people 
they   govern,   and   that   therefore   they   have   a 


CONCLUSION  588 

righteous  cause  in  keeping  them  subordinate, 
or  they  are  mere  plunderers.  If  they  have  this 
faith  they  are  bound  to  defend  themselves  from 
Indian,  Japanese,  or  any  other  civilization  that 
they  consider  dangerous  to  their  own,  whether 
in  their  dependencies  or  at  home. 

We  should  not  boast  nor  bluster;  nor  should 
we  seek  peace  by  hanging  the  halter  of  defence- 
lessness  about  our  necks,  with  the  end  dangling, 
as  an  invitation  to  pull  us  into  war.  We  may 
maintain  our  preferences  at  home,  but  we  may 
not  enforce  our  prejudices  abroad,  is  about  the 
stage  at  which  we  have  arrived.  Internationally, 
we  must  now  live  "answerable  lives,"  not  only 
because  the  East  is  growing  powerful  enough  to 
demand  answers,  but  because  as  our  knowledge 
of  other  peoples  increases  by  speedier  means  of 
intercourse,  sympathy  ought  to  increase  as  well. 

No  successful  imperialism  is  possible  to  a 
nation  of  men  who  are  without  charity,  without 
toleration  and  without  recognition  of  their  own 
ignorance  and  limitations.  They  must  strive 
for  an  intellectual  magnanimity,  which  enables 
them  to  detect  the  good  in  manners,  morals, 
governments  and  beliefs,  built  upon  traditions 
worlds  apart  from  their  own.  They  must  not 
be  turned  aside  from  the  responsibilities  of  gov- 
erning and  protecting  the  alien  races  in  the  de- 


,534       TOE   WEST  IN  THE   EAST 

pendencies  they  control  by  that  sentimentality 
of  the  day  which  twists  truth  to  make  traps  for 
fools.  They  must  not  be  led  astray  by  the  temp- 
tations to  immediate  gain  and  the  temporary 
defeat  of  a  commercial  rival  by  the  "drummer" 
diplomacy  which  a  selfish  industrialism  would 
foist  upon  them.  The  man  who  only  watches 
his  feet  is  quite  as  likely  to  stumble  as  the  man 
who  is  looking  at  a  distant  steeple.  The  future 
as  well  as  the  present,  then  as  much  as  now, 
must  be  kept  in  mind.  No  nation  ever  lost 
anything,  not  even  its  trade,  by  holding  to  high 
ideals,  and  by  insisting  upon  them  for  its  ser- 
vants. Only  thus  can  the  West  give  a  confident 
"No"  to  the  question  being  asked  in  the  East: 

"Is  civilization  a  failure. 
And  is  the  Caucasian  played  out?" 


University  of  California 

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305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


Ill 


